


Hypothermia

by thecommodore_squid (orphan_account), Wolviecat



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Depression, Don't Fuck With This Motherfucking Clique, Found Family, Homelessness, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Preslash Samsteve, Insomniac Sam Wilson, Laura and America Are Spanish-Speaking Bros, Logan & Steve Parallels Are Truly Endless, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Touch-Starved Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-10-29 02:52:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10844979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/thecommodore_squid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolviecat/pseuds/Wolviecat
Summary: "He's a veteran.""You've talked to him?"Sam shook his head. "I can tell," he said firmly, tone booking no room for argument.Natasha's gaze was critical and clouded with a vaguely ominous shadow. "You have to be careful."AKAA Canon-Divergent AU in which Steve becomes homeless, and nothing is as it should be.





	1. 00: PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, so this is the first time I've participated in any sort of Big Bang, and the moderators did an excellent job orchestrating this RBB. All my thanks to them.
> 
> This story would not exist if it hadn't been for my genius talented amazing artist, [Wolviecat.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolviecat/pseuds/Wolviecat) An amazing human being who I was so damn honored and grateful to work with.
> 
> Another big thanks to my beta, [trickstermoose67](http://trickstermoose67.tumblr.com/) ([Renversermonmonde](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Renversermonmonde/pseuds/Renversermonmonde) on ao3). She was an incredible guide throughout the process, and I was so happy to have her help.
> 
> This fic contains some sensitive content, so please do read the tags. If you have any questions/concerns, feel free to message me.
> 
> Comments and kudos sustain my Earthly form.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

Having never died in a fiery explosion before, Sam sure thought about it a lot.

 

Sometimes, he’d shove Riley out of the way. Sometimes, he'd be up there alone. Hell, sometimes Riley was the one to push him into the explosions with his firm hands and his bleak, condemning eyes, saying, _You deserve this_.

 

Sam didn't like talking about these particular fantasies with his therapist, although he knew it would likely help in the long run. But was it really so damn bad to keep this one thing for himself?

 

He didn't know.

 

Sam slowly blinked back to the lobby of the VA, and Sadie whined, nudging her cold nose against his hand.

 

Rhonda looked at him sympathetically. “You back with us?”

 

Sam shook his head, pushing his fingers through the fur by Sadie’s ears. “Yeah. Sorry about that.” He smiled, hoping it was convincing enough.

 

Rhonda's lips curled upwards wryly. “I'll take the phones now. You get Sadie duty.”

 

Sam tried to find it in him to be angry about the obvious pity there, but he was too stupidly relieved to spend the next hour with Rhonda’s dog instead of the terrifying blare of the phone.

 

He sat down, and Sadie put her paws on his knees for a moment before lying down across his lap.

 

He sighed happily, trying not to think about the phantom flames against his skin, the look in Riley’s eyes.

 

But even though he hadn't known the touch of fire, he would always know how it felt to burn.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Sam,” his mother said over the phone as he shoved his way into his house. He could hear the stern judgment radiating from her, even all these miles away. “You _will_ be at my house this Christmas.”

 

“I never said I wouldn’t be,” Sam said, so surprised that he almost dropped his phone.

 

“Well, you weren’t here last year,” she muttered with the sort of pointed aloofness only mothers could manage.

 

Sam sighed, putting his groceries away as he awkwardly cradled the phone between his ear and his shoulder. “I wasn’t—“

 

“I know,” she said, same tone, a tad gentler this time. “You had to sort yourself out, and that’s fine, baby. You know I love you, even when you skip out on me.”

 

Sam closed his eyes. “Mama—“

 

“But that don’t mean I won’t miss you and feel your pain in my bones every second.”

 

 Sam took a moment to breathe deeply. He pressed his forehead against the refrigerator, eyes closed as the world narrowed down to the unnatural, slightly static silence of the phone.

 

Finally,

 

“I gotta go, mama.”

 

“Alright, baby,” his mother said, sounding somehow like she wasn’t affected much by the conversation. “I’ll see you in a month.”

 

Sam shuddered against the refrigerator, wishing he could be better, wishing he wasn’t the way he was, wishing it’d been _him_ in that explosion instead.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was four in the morning again, and Sam stared at the ceiling for three minutes before determining that he wasn’t going to be getting any more sleep. He didn’t waste any time pitying himself—just swung himself out of his too-soft bed and grabbed his shoes.

 

Sam’s running route was expansive, designed to wear him out thoroughly enough that he’d be too exhausted to think about anything besides breathing steadily and putting one foot in front of the other. It was working pretty well for him in terms of a coping mechanism.

 

Somewhere around the fifth mile, Sam noticed a runner a little ways in front of him, a bright red ponytail only managing to contain half her hair, swishing back and forth with each pace. Sam watched the movement. Like a pendulum.

 

He didn’t catch up to her, but she paused to stretch right as Sam hit his sixth mile, and Sam glanced as he passed by. They locked eyes for a moment, and the woman’s lips twitched upwards when Sam caught himself on a stumble. Sam turned forward and sped up to try to forget about it.

 

But it wasn’t five minutes later when he heard the tell-tale slap of shoes hitting pavement that meant someone was _running_. Sam chanced a glance back to see the woman, dead-ass sprinting towards him.

 

She slowed down as she reached him, matching pace for a minute just to say, “I’ll race you to the end of the mall,” and then she was off.

 

“Shit!” Sam gasped, trying to launch himself after her as quickly as he could. The woman laughed breathlessly, staying at least three paces in front of him even though Sam kept going fucking faster.

 

When they reached the end of the mall, the woman skidded to a stop to put her hands on her knees and breathe, and Sam promptly laid down to get his own breath back, mind blessedly clear as his heart raced fast then slower.

 

“Good one,” the woman said after a minute, sitting down next to him.

 

“You kicked my _ass_ ,” Sam complained, not moving to look at her.

 

The woman huffed in amusement. “Not as bad as I kick most people’s asses.”

 

“Thanks?”

 

“You’re welcome,” the woman said idly.

 

Sam heaved himself to a sitting position. “I’m Sam,” he said.

 

The woman eyed him critically for a moment that felt just shy of natural. “Natasha,” she finally said.

 

“You always race strangers at five in the morning?”

 

“Sometimes, I do it at five-thirty,” Natasha whispered, a gleam in her eyes.

 

 “Wow,” Sam laughed. He gave her an odd look. “You from around here?”

 

Natasha shook her head slowly. “No.”

 

“Alright,” Sam said after it became clear Natasha wouldn’t add anything else. “You run every morning?”

 

“Yes. Not usually here, though.” She glanced at him, lips ticking upwards again. “But if you get faster, I may change my routine.”

 

Her tone was… flirtatious. Sam looked down at his knees and reminded himself that any sort of relationship would be a bad idea right now. “I don’t know if I can promise you that,” he said, smiling self-deprecatingly.

 

Natasha shrugged, languid. Like a dancer. “Maybe I’ll change my routine anyway.” She looked around, gaze critical. “This route is pretty.”

 

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, although he never really paid attention to his surroundings except to note how far he’d run.

 

“Have you ever run through the FDR memorial?”

 

Sam rolled his eyes. “With all the tourists?”

 

“Not at four AM,” Natasha said, giving him a pointed look. She gazed out at the mall. “It’s really pretty.”

 

Sam frowned. “Maybe I’ll go check it out.”

 

Natasha smiled wryly. She heard his noncommittal tone but blessedly didn’t call him out. She got to her feet with a grace that Sam envied. “Maybe we’ll see each other again.”

 

 _Maybe_. Sam nodded tiredly at her, and he only watched for a moment as she picked up the pace to continue on the run that Sam definitely needed to finish.

 

 

* * *

 

 

There was a man.

 

Sam noticed him while he was on a run. He was just as guilty as anyone else for avoiding looking at or thinking about homeless people, so maybe he’d been there for a while, but Sam liked to think that he was moderately more observant than an average person.

 

Plus, the man was hard not to notice. He sat slumped against the wall of some building on Sam’s running route with a duffel bag, and even though Sam couldn’t see any dog tags, he knew a veteran when he saw one.

 

Sam slowed down as he got closer, thinking about how December started tomorrow and how that jacket didn’t look like it would help much once it started to snow. Even if the guy didn’t want to hear it, Sam should point him to the shelter nearby—take him to the VA, offer him his couch, _something_.

 

But as he got close enough to see and hear everything with detail, his mind whirred to a halt.

 

The man glared murderously down at his knees. His shoulders jerked involuntarily a few times, and he scowled, reaching for the wall behind him to press his knuckles against the concrete. Sam frowned, and the man dragged his knuckles down the wall _hard_ , leaving two nauseating streaks of blood in his wake.

 

The man examined the torn skin of his hands and seemed to relax enough to glare at his surroundings. His gaze flicked around restlessly, only pausing on Sam long enough to determine if he was an immediate threat before moving on.

 

Sam swallowed roughly.

 

If he approached the man, he’d likely be met with violence. He’d seen bad spells of PTSD in the damn mirror, and he knew when to stay close versus when to quit. And those two splotches of blood on the wall demanded he quit.

 

He hated ignoring him, but it wasn’t like he had another choice.

 

The worst lesson Sam had learned from the force was that you couldn’t save everyone.

 

He took a deep breath, kept his gaze forward, and sped up.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next time he saw Natasha was a week later on his run at 2:00 in the morning.

 

“Why are you awake?” Sam asked as they recovered from another damn stupid race. Which Sam lost. Again.

 

“I could be asking you the same thing,” Natasha said.

 

Sam shrugged. This one was easy. “I’m an insomniac.”

 

“Oh,” Natasha said, and for half a second, she even looked mildly caught off-guard. She looked away. “I keep weird hours.”

 

“Alright,” Sam said. “Fair enough.”

 

They started at an easy jog again, Natasha blessedly keeping a slow pace.

 

“What time does work start today?” Sam asked after a moment.

 

“I dunno. Whenever I feel like it,” Natasha said, not even out of breath in the slightest.

 

Sam rolled his eyes. “Weird hours by choice?”

 

“Precisely.”

 

They came up on the homeless man that made Sam’s stomach lurch every time he came close. He resolutely didn’t look at his knuckles.

 

Differently from usual, the guy was asleep, but it didn’t look like a peaceful thing, and as they passed, he even let out a whimper. Sam closed his eyes and tried not to think about it.

 

“I want to help him,” he whispered to Natasha as they passed.

 

Natasha gave him an unreadable look. “Why?”

 

“He’s a veteran.”

 

“You’ve talked to him?”

 

Sam shook his head. “I can tell,” he said firmly, tone booking no room for argument.

 

Natasha’s gaze was critical and clouded with a vaguely ominous shadow. “You have to be careful.”

 

Sam wrinkled his nose in distaste, and that was that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“I should get a service dog,” Sam said, running his hands through Sadie’s fur.

 

“That’s what I’ve been _telling_ you,” Rhonda said with an eye roll. “You’ve got group therapy in ten minutes.”

 

Sam sighed, forcing himself to stand up straight. “Thanks.”

 

Rhonda threw up a peace sign as Sam walked back to his usual room for group therapy.

 

A few people were there already, and Sam caught up with Holly on her progress relearning how to drive. He gathered his notes on the last session and settled at his podium, and then he started the discussion.

 

Halfway through, Danny started to cry, albeit silently, and he continued to cry until the session ended.

 

Sam approached him slowly after everyone else had started to leave the room.

 

“You wanna talk about it?”

 

Danny inhaled shakily, wiping furiously at his eyes. “I _hate_ myself.”

 

“Yeah,” Sam said, hesitating before putting a hand on his shoulder. Danny sagged under the touch. “How’s your leg been holding up?”

 

Danny whacked at the prosthetic bitterly. “It’s _useless_. I’m useless. I should be—“

 

It was the sentence that Sam heard or thought every day since getting home—finished or unfinished. _I should be dead_. “How’s Annalise?”

 

Danny glanced up at him, face crumpling. He knew what Sam was doing—reminding him of his daughter, who needed him and loved him even if Danny didn’t think he was worthy of it. “She…” he faltered. Cleared his throat. Cracked a watery smile. “She’s learning how to ride her bike.”

 

“You been helping?”

 

“Yeah,” Danny whispered, voice breaking.

 

After a few more minutes of talking him down, Danny pulled Sam into a fierce hug.

 

“Thank you.”

 

Sometimes, Sam felt like he lived a helluva ungrateful life. But these were his moments to remember to keep close to his chest when all he could think about was fire and smoke and ash. The VA was his Annalise.

 

Sam didn’t know if he should think to wish for more.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Record-low temperatures predicted for later this week,” Sam said to Natasha as they laced up their sneakers. He was thinking about the man with the duffel and the bloody knuckles.

 

“Hm,” Natasha said, and she was probably following his logic, but was too damn noncommittal about everything to say something.

 

“Really fucking cold today,” Sam said, glancing down at his shorts ruefully. Even Natasha was wearing a jacket.

 

She shrugged. “You don’t know real cold,” she said in that voice that was half humorous, half ominous. Sam snorted, rolling his eyes, wondering where the fuck she grew up. Maybe Maine, although he could never be sure.

 

They started on their run, and Sam grimaced at how deserted the streets were. There were only a few people walking around, even though he and Natasha had gotten a late start today, and it was already 7:00. It was the kind of cold that snuck up on you until you couldn’t move or breathe.

 

So Sam was paying close attention when they rounded the corner to see the homeless man and—

 

Sam had seen the stillness of death in his lifetime too many times for one man, maybe. He’d felt that stillness. Almost lived it.

 

The man was slumped against the wall as usual, perfectly still. Sam’s mind whirred to a halt, and he couldn’t even tell if the guy was _breathing_.

 

“That’s it,” he said, and Natasha swore under her breath as Sam stopped running and looked at the guy. “He’s either dead or needs help.”

 

“It’s a bad idea,” Natasha said, eyeing the man critically. “He looks _dangerous_.”

 

And it was true. Even in this perfect, horrifying stillness, the man looked like he should have a DANGER sign over his head at all times.

 

Sam turned and gave Natasha a desperate look. “I can help.”

 

Natasha threw up her arms. “ _Fine._ ”

 

And even though she looked angry, she followed him as he walked over to the man.

 

Up close, Sam got even more worried. There were dark, prominent bruises under his eyes from lack of sleep, and the skin on his knuckles didn’t appear to be scabbing over properly. Sam wondered if he was on drugs or hadn’t eaten or _something_ , but he didn’t know. He saw with only minimal relief that the man’s chest rose and fell shallowly, so he was alive, at least for now.

 

“You ever seen anything like this?” Natasha asked, sounding nothing but neutral.

 

“Sort of,” Sam said, thinking of a fellow soldier’s last moments, unable to eat for weeks before dying in his sleep, thinking of his aunt who sucked on her fingers and tried to quit every month without success until she died when Sam was eleven.

 

He crouched down. Should he try to wake the man up, or should he just call the VA or the hospital and ask for help? If he did that, everything may get too frenzied to find out who the man was, so maybe Sam should check for an ID first.

 

Sam had thought that the man only had a duffel bag, but he saw a backpack laying against the wall next to him. Maybe the man had been resting against it before.

 

“I’m gonna see if I can find an ID,” Sam whispered.

 

“Alright,” Natasha said warily.

 

Sam reached for the backpack, which was oddly unzipped, setting off warning bells in Sam’s head. He peaked inside and—

 

“Did you find an ID?” Natasha asked, fiddling with her water bottle.

 

“Um,” Sam said blankly. He pressed a hand to his mouth to keep from saying anything as he carefully grabbed the single object in the backpack and lifted it up enough for Natasha to see, not daring looking back.

 

The world had the stillness of death before Natasha said, “ _Shit_ ,” with feeling.

 

Underneath Sam’s fingertips was a heavy shield of red, white, and blue and a big-ass star in the middle.

 

 Sam didn’t know what to think or what to do, but he was going to find out. He was going to help this man—even if— _especially_ if he was—

 

“What the _fuck_ ,” a new voice, rough with disuse, snapped.

 

Sam looked over into blue eyes, murderous with panic.

 

 “ _Shit_.”

 

And just like that, the world’s stillness collapsed.


	2. 01: TELEPHONE COMPANY

“So, an interesting thing happened,” Tony said as he stuck the entire upper half of his body into some sort of machine. Steve sat uncomfortably on one of his stools, trying to figure out why he was here. “Fury informed yours truly and the rest of the Avengers that—“ Tony removed himself from the machine, covered in grease, “—you are not Steve Rogers.”

 

Steve kicked at the bottom rung of his stool. “Um. No, sir.”

 

“Uh huh,” Tony said blankly, eyes alight with intelligence. “You’re apparently a copy-cat Captain America—a copy- _cap_ , if you will.” Tony grinned at his own joke. “Steve Rogers is still officially KIA.”

 

Steve scratched hard at his palm, watching the brief line of blood disappear quickly. “Yes, sir.”

 

Tony rolled his eyes, walking towards the other side of his room, throwing a wrench to the side as he did and picking up another high-tech tool. “I’m insulted, really.” He yanked apart two plates on a… something… and continued speaking without looking at Steve. “Really, I get lying to the rest of them—who the fuck cares about some guy who’s been dead for seventy years—but come on.” With that, Tony turned around and locked eyes with Steve, pointing at him. “I know your face almost better than my own.”

 

Steve stared at him, trying to keep his face blank.

 

“ _Almost_ ,” Tony repeated self-consciously, turning back to his machine.

 

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Steve said after a pause too long to be natural. “I’m. My name is. James.” It hurt—like someone was tearing out his lungs —to say the name out loud.

 

“Yeah. You sound real convincing,” Tony said sarcastically. “Look, my old man had some sort of heart bone r for you, so I grew up in a _Captain America household_. He looked for you his whole life, you know.”

 

Steve closed his eyes for a moment. God, he loved Howard, but what did he do to his son to make _old man_ sound like an insult? “I—“

 

“Cut the shit, Steve.”

 

Steve shivered. That may have been the first time he’d been referred to by his name in this century.

 

Tony approached him, gaze softening marginally. “Anyway, I have some shit for you.”

 

“You…”

 

“Yeah,” Tony said as if Steve had actually finished his sentence. “I know. Howard kept a box of your shit in the basement. Come on. Maybe the old man will stop haunting my building if he knows his guy finally got his stuff.”

 

Steve didn’t really have any choice but to follow Tony to his elevators. It went down fast, and Steve tried not to feel dizzy.

 

“Are they treating you well?” Tony asked as he tapped at his phone, his voice layered with a tone of practiced disinterest.

 

Steve shrugged. “Fine.”

 

Tony hummed. “Anyway.” The elevator came to a stop. “Come on.”

 

Steve hesitated in the doorway of the elevator, as Tony breezed into a dark, dusty room filled with cardboard boxes and began to rummage around. He felt as if the world had tilted just a tad too far to the right, and he was dizzy with vertigo as he looked around a room that could have belonged to Howard Stark. Maybe it had.

 

Steve took a deep breath and trailed after Tony. He was muttering something about not having been down here since the 60s, which was likely a hyperbole given Tony’s age. Steve shoved his hands in his pockets and nudged his toe against a wayward box, sagging with age, sadly labeled **HOWARD’S SHIRTS**. Steve craned his neck to peek inside and saw a faded button-down as his stomach swooped with fresh grief. 

 

“There it is!” Tony shouted triumphantly, pulling out an even sadder cardboard box. Steve blinked a few times as his gaze caught on the label: **STEVE**. He looked away and blinked a few more times.

 

Tony shoved the box towards him, and Steve caught it before he could let go.

 

“Have at it,” he said, eyes flicking over the rest of the room. “I’m gonna go look at the—I forgot about that shit— “ And then Steve was (more or less) alone with his box while Tony’s attention moved elsewhere.

 

Steve swallowed roughly and delicately cradled the box in one arm and reached in to rummage around.

 

On top of everything was the sketchpad Bucky had given to him for his last birthday before the war, half-filled.

 

Steve stared at it, vision going suspiciously blurry. He flicked open the cover with a single finger, as if scared the touch would burn.

 

The first page was Bucky, smiling his devilish smile. Of course it was. What else could it be? Bucky’d been Steve’s _model_. Steve exhaled harshly and closed his eyes, shutting the book decisively as he got his bearings.

 

After a moment, he set the box on a stack of other boxes and put the sketchbook aside. No need to deal with that now, anyway.

 

Underneath the sketchbook was the canteen Steve had used during the war. He placed his fingers on the little dents where he’d gripped it too hard and tried not to think about the years that this canteen had seen that Steve had missed.

 

There were two stubby pencils that Steve carefully pocketed and a small blurred photograph of the Commandos that Steve stared at blankly for a good five minutes, before putting it in his shirt pocket, over his heart.

 

The only thing left was a leather jacket Steve had never seen before. It looked warm and inviting, and Steve paused at the patch on the shoulder that resembled the symbol for the SSR.

 

“Tony,” Steve managed.

 

“Wassup Cap?”

 

Steve swallowed, telling himself he wasn’t disappointed to hear the title. “Whose is this?”

 

Tony looked up from the box he had his hands in and squinted at the jacket. “Looks like Aunt Peggy’s.”

 

The breath punched out of Steve’s lungs, and he struggled to stay upright. After a moment, he managed, “Peggy’s?”

 

“Wait,” Tony said, standing. “It looks too big. But Aunt Peg liked wearing big jackets. I dunno. I can’t remember. Have you visited her yet?”

 

Steve ran his hand over the leather gently, as if Peggy was wearing it, standing here with him now. That was why it took him a moment to process what Tony had said. He looked up sharply. “She’s alive? ”

 

Tony gave him an odd look. “Yeah. She’s not in great shape, but she’s here. Down in DC.”

 

Steve scowled.

 

“They told you she was dead?” Tony asked, looking disturbed.

 

“They didn’t tell me a damn thing,” Steve snapped, thinking back on how he’d asked for the files on the Howling Commandos, and how they’d said _There’s nothing you don’t already know in there_ with sympathetic, sad eyes. He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Can I keep this?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound as pathetic as he felt.

 

Tony’s eyes may have softened, but Steve thought it was the bad lighting of the room. “Well, _I’m_ not gonna fucking wear it.”

 

Steve tried for a smile as he slipped the jacket onto his shoulders. He felt—warm. The warmest he’d ever felt in the century. He looked up. “Thank you, Tony.”

 

Tony was already waving his hand. “Don’t thank me. I was just trying to get a ghost off my back.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

“I need to speak with Director Fury,” Steve said in his most polite-yet-commanding voice possible.

 

Fury’s receptionist, Macy, didn’t even have the decency to look apologetic. “Sorry. He’s not in right now.”

 

“Is there someone else I could speak with?”

 

“I’m afraid the highest ranking available officer is me.”

 

Steve let out a harsh breath. “Tell Fury that I’m sick of his fucking game.” He pressed his hand down on the table, and it creaked.

 

Macy didn’t look up from what she was writing down. “I will convey the message.”

 

Steve didn’t know what to do besides walk away in a stride of righteous anger. He could excuse the fact that he had to go by _James_ , and he could excuse the fact that his next-door neighbor was spying on him, and he could fucking excuse the fact that he wasn’t allowed to leave Shield HQ without telling somebody where he was going and what he was doing, but he couldn’t excuse the fact that they had let him assume that Peggy was dead.

 

“Whoa,” Rumlow said when he walked into his favorite gym. “You good?”

 

“Peachy,” Steve spat, stalking towards the nearest punching bag and barely stopping to half-heartedly wrap his knuckles before letting his fists fly.

 

It was barely three minutes before the bag flew off the hook and tore as it hit the wall a few meters away.

 

“Dude,” Rumlow said, sounding vaguely disturbed. “You either need to get laid, or go on a good fuckin’ mission.”

 

“Mission. Definitely mission,” Steve said, pressing a hand to his forehead.

 

“Okay, sure. We’re scheduled for something tomorrow.”

 

“Good,” Steve sighed, sitting down on the nearby bench.

 

Rumlow sat next to him and clapped him on the shoulder. “We could go out for drinks tonight, if you can’t wait.”

 

Steve’s skin crawled at the idea of going to a fucking bar. “I—sorry,” he said lamely, finally looking at Rumlow.

 

He shrugged. “It’s whatever.” He squeezed Steve’s shoulder. “Just want to make sure you don’t break yourself in half.”

 

Steve held back a wince, wondering how Rumlow seemed to know about Steve’s first months in this century, when he’d only just moved to Manhattan. “I…”

 

Rumlow offered him a gentle smile that set off warning bells in Steve’s head. He liked Rumlow well enough, but gentle expressions did not belong on his face. “You’ll get there.”

 

“Get where?” Steve snapped defensively.

 

Rumlow sighed and withdrew his hand. He shook his head as he stood. “Never mind. I’ll see you tomorrow, James.”

 

Steve shuddered, staring at his wrists. Hill and Fury had agreed that James was the only feasible name because it was the only one that got Steve’s attention. Steve didn’t know why that was a problem—they were all spies. Didn’t they have ways of getting people to respond to different names? Or maybe his identity was so damn top secret that only Fury and Hill knew about it, and they didn’t want to risk anyone else knowing.

 

Steve raked a hand through his hair. He should go for a run. He liked the treadmills here.

 

He _could_ live like this.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sharon/Kate would have been subtle in her spying if Steve didn’t know that she was a spy.

 

“Hey!” she said, coincidentally walking out of her apartment as Steve walked up the stairs.

 

Steve forced a smile. “Hi.” _Please don’t make conversation please don’t make conversation please don’t_ —

 

“So, the Mets play the Yankees tomorrow.”

 

“Oh,” Steve said.

 

“You planning on watching?”

 

“No.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Work,” Steve said.

 

“Ah,” Sharon/Kate nodded knowingly. “Telephone company really demands the hours.”

 

Steve considered saying something really passive aggressive like, _Yeah, you know that better than I do_ , but instead, he smiled blandly and said, “Yep.”

 

“Well, have a good night. I was just running to do some laundry.”

 

“You too,” Steve said, finally unlocking his door and shutting it behind him in exhaustion.

 

Today had been long. He wanted to go to sleep, except that never seemed like an option.

 

 Instead, he sat down in front of his window and stared out at the great view Shield had gotten for him. He wondered if Sharon/Kate knew he was Captain America, or if she just assumed he was somebody important. And then he stopped wondering and just tipped his head forward until it was resting against the glass.

 

Steve didn’t want to fucking be here.

 

 

* * *

 

 

After the mission—successful, but violent in that dirty, nauseating way that would have made the Commandos silent for days—the strike team went out to celebrate, but Steve begged off.

 

“You need to start making friends,” Rumlow said, and his eyes were dark and intense, and Steve squirmed uncomfortably for a minute before making a lame excuse and getting the fuck out of there.

 

Maria Hill was right where she was supposed to be, and she didn’t look surprised to see Steve, but then again, she never looked surprised. “James. How can I help you?”

 

Steve glared at her, but her face didn’t even so much as twitch. “We need to talk.”

 

Hill looked him over. “My office.”

 

Once inside, doors locked, walls hella soundproof, any type of recording turned off, Steve crossed his arms and glared some more.

 

“What?” Hill demanded.

 

“Peggy’s alive.”

 

Hill’s brows furrowed. “Yes? And ?”

 

Steve suddenly felt lame, coming here to complain about not knowing his old girlfriend’s whereabouts. Maybe Peggy didn’t want him to know. Maybe— “You lied to me.” The words sounded brittle and pathetic, even to his own ears.

 

Hill arched a single judgmental eyebrow. “We’re an organization of spies.”

 

“Yes, but—“ Steve let out an angry breath, picking at the healing scabs on his knuckles. “Who would it hurt to tell me?”

 

“Both of you,” Hill said, eyeing him critically. “We’re trying to get you to _move on_. You wouldn’t have passed your psych eval if we hadn’t pushed you.”

 

Steve hesitated. That was probably true, and being out in the field was the only thing that even made sense to him anymore, but—

 

“And Margaret Carter has Alzheimer’s. We think it would be destabilizing to reintroduce you to one another.”

 

Steve’s knees buckled, but he caught himself on the chair in front of him. “She forgets ?” he asks, suddenly feeling out of breath—dizzy.

 

Hill looked at him sadly. “I’m sorry, Steve.”

 

Steve bowed his head and took a deep breath. “God,” he hissed, taking one hand off the back of the chair to press it into his eyes.

 

They stood there for a long moment until Steve managed to collect himself enough to raise his head. His eyes felt achingly, painfully, horrendously dry.

 

“So I can’t visit her,” he said, and his voice sounded like a detached fucking monotone.

 

“You _could_ ,” Hill hedged uncertainly. “But we don’t know what it’d do to her.”

 

And Steve would _never_ want Peggy to be in more pain than she already was. Ever. “Understood.” He withdrew from his hold on the chair and miraculously stayed standing. He started for the door.

 

“Steve?”

 

He stopped with his hand on the doorpost, eyes squeezed shut. “Yeah?”

 

There was a beat of silence. “I really am sorry.”

 

Steve inhaled shakily and stepped out into the hall.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He didn’t see her often, but when he did, it was only a glimpse.

 

Natasha Romanoff sat across from Clint Barton in the cafeteria, smiling at something he’d said, and Steve stopped in his tracks and scanned the room to see if he could sit in her blind spot. But she wouldn’t have a blind spot from her position.

 

He let out a tired breath and left the room.

 

ME: I’m going out for lunch

 

SECURE NUMBER: An agent has been dispatched to join you.

 

Steve couldn’t resist one last glance at the cafeteria, and as he turned, Natasha Romanoff raised her head, and they locked eyes.

 

She frowned in recognition, and Steve ducked his head and hurried away.

 

Fury and Hill had told all of the Avengers that he wasn’t Steve Rogers, including his most trusted agents. Steve didn’t know why, or if they believed him, but he didn’t want to risk it. She likely just remembered him as the copy-cat superhero, anyway.

 

In the lobby, he met with an agent named Bobbi Morse, and they headed out to grab a slice of pizza.

 

They had one exchange over the course of the hour they were outside of Shield’s walls.

 

“Didn’t care for the cafeteria food?” she asked.

 

“Sometimes, I can’t,” Steve whispered.

 

Morse nodded, and that seemed to be that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you wearing a parachute?”

 

“No,” Steve said.

 

Rollins smiled his shark-like smile. “Crazy bastard.”

 

Steve offered a mock salute and jumped out of the plane.

 

He willed the water to turn to concrete and break his skull as the wind rushed past him, but the cold crack of waves against his skin only served to knock the breath out of him for a moment.

 

Apparently, there was some sort of rogue Shield agent on this abandoned oil rig, and Fury wanted to bring them in. He sent the strike team to do it.

 

Steve hauled himself onto the deck, feet silent, water rapidly drying on his skin in the harsh wind.

 

He hefted his shield and scanned his surroundings. If he were a rogue Shield agent, he’d probably hide above-deck, in order to have a plausible escape route. Going below-deck would only trap yourself—it was a viable option if you knew you were going to die and wanted to take as many people down with you as possible, which may be the rogue agent’s prerogative.

 

He’d still check above-deck first.

 

He raised his comm to his mouth. “Rollins, Giffords, and Lopez—head below-deck. Rumlow and Jameston—check the cargo. I’m heading for the control room.”

 

There was no response, but Steve knew better than to doubt that he’d been heard. He broke into a silent run.

 

Steve didn’t know the slightest thing about operating a control room, but he knew that it was strategically advantageous to hide in there if you did know how.

 

And—lo and behold—as he nudged the door open and peeked inside, Steve saw a woman with her hands on the dashboard.

 

“Don’t,” Steve said quietly.

 

She whirled around and threw her hands up. “Captain Rogers?” she breathed.

 

Steve narrowed his eyes. “He’s dead.” But Steve was weak when it came to hearing his own name, and he hesitated just a beat.

 

That beat was enough for wild hope to flash in the woman’s eyes. “I’m on your side. Don’t tell them I’m in here—please, I’m trying to stop them.”

 

“That’s why we’re bringing you in,” Steve said slowly, enunciating each word.

 

“Let me help you. Please.”

 

“I’m not who you think I am.”

 

“I pulled you out of the ice. I know who you are.”

 

Steve breathed in harshly. He wasn’t supposed to ask questions. He was supposed to fucking bring her in. “Who the fuck are you? ”

 

“A friend,” the woman said, voice shaking. “If you can—“

 

Steve heard the _ppft_ of a silenced gunshot an instant before the glass in front of the control room shattered, and the woman’s head snapped back, brain matter exploding against the back wall.

 

Steve turned, and Rumlow stood in the doorway.

 

“You were negotiating with her?” he said casually.

 

A knot twisted into Steve’s gut, and he watched warily as Rumlow brushed past him and knelt down to dip his fingers in the woman’s blood. “No,” Steve said around a lump in his throat.

 

Something about this mission felt very, _very_ wrong.

 

Rumlow slowly stood. His back was still to Steve. Steve could—

 

The strike team filtered in through the door until Steve was surrounded. Rumlow turned around as Steve set his shoulders.

 

“You know, I was really starting to root for you, Cap,” he offered pleasantly. Steve felt six guns trained on his skull. He drew his own gun. Clicked off the safety.

 

Steve canted his head to the side. He wished he was more surprised than he was. Instead, all he felt beneath the adrenaline was a cold, numb resignation. “Bad call,” he said quietly, voice almost cruel.

 

Three shots went off at once. Steve ducked and turned, sweeping his leg out to knock Lopez off her feet. He turned and slammed the shield into Giffords’ head, and he crumpled. A bullet hit him in the lower back. Steve tackled Jameston and threw him across the room, and he fell into the shattered window.

 

Four more shots went off. One hit him in the calf, and another grazed his neck. Steve hissed and threw his shield. It hit Rollins in the neck with a messy crack.

 

Rumlow stood at the other end of the room, his gun raised. Lopez started to rise, and Steve turned to kick her in the head as Rumlow shot again.

 

“ _F-fuck_ ,” Steve gasped as he felt the glaring pain in his chest. He lunged towards Rumlow, who quickly tossed his gun aside in favor of intercepting Steve with his fists.

 

Steve was _stronger_ than him, but he also had at least four gunshot wounds, and Rumlow managed a few fucking nasty knocks. Steve finally grabbed him around the middle and threw his weight forward. He grabbed Rumlow by the hair and slammed his head into the ground. He couldn’t hear if his skull cracked against the rushing in his ears.

 

Steve surveyed his damage, pressing a fist against the worst of his bullet wounds.

 

Most of them were dead.

 

Steve squeezed his eyes shut and tried for a few deep breaths, but they came too fast. He managed to get himself under control after several minutes, and he opened his eyes.

 

He had to find a way off this damn oil rig.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He stole a boat.

 

He stole a boat and refused to think.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In Manhattan, Steve snuck into Costco and changed into civilian clothes and wrapped too-thin bands of gauze around his injuries. Each breath fucking hurt, but Steve knew the bullet would pop out any minute. It had gone deep and may have cracked his ribs. Most of the other bullets had squelched out of his skin on the boat. He also grabbed a big-ass snack. He was dizzy with exhaustion.

 

Steve waited until dusk to walk into the Shield lobby, but when he reached for the secret elevator, nothing happened.

 

He turned to the seemingly benign receptionist and said, “What the fuck.”

 

“Excuse me?” the woman said, eyebrows lifting.

 

“Let me up.”

 

“I’m sorry. The entrance you’re seeking is for chief officers only,” she said with icy politeness.

 

Steve strode up to her desk and slammed his palm against the tabletop. “I need to speak with Director Fury.”

 

“I’m sorry. No one of that name works here.”

 

Steve gritted his teeth. “I work here,” he snapped. “I’ve _been_ working here for three fucking months!”

 

“Please don’t raise your voice,” she said with forced calm.

 

“There are goddamn _traitors_ in this building!” Steve exploded, voicing the thought that he’d refused to think since the oil rig. “I need to talk to—“

 

“This is a telephone company.”

 

“This is not a _damn fucking_ telephone company!”

 

The woman narrowed her eyes. “If you don’t calm down, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

 

Steve balled his hand into a fist and slowly pulled it back from the counter. He breathed in deeply. “I’m Agent James Carter. Look me up.” When she didn’t move, he added through his teeth, “ _Please_.”

 

The woman sighed and typed into her laptop. “I’m sorry. We don’t have any records of you at the telephone company.”

 

“I’m Captain Steve Fucking Rogers,” Steve finally exploded. “You can’t lock me out of the fucking organization _named after me_.”

 

It was a fatal thing to say. Too outrageous and insane for anyone to believe. “I’m calling security.”

 

Steve pressed his hands into his eyes and took another breath. “That’s not necessary,” he forced himself to say. And then he strode out of the building.

 

What the _fuck_ was happening?

 

He needed a game plan. He needed to regroup. He needed to _think_.

 

Steve loitered outside Shield HQ and touched his chest. He winced. He could feel the bullet worming its way out of his muscles. He hissed and bit down on his hand to keep from making another noise as it finally burrowed outside of his skin.

 

He caught the bullet and examined his own blood with shaking fingers.

 

Jesus.

 

He needed a plan.

 

 

* * *

 

 

  1. Sneak home and pack a bag. See if Sharon/Kate is home. If so, proceed to step 4.



 

  1. Get the money that Shield gave him. He didn’t have a bank account. Just what Shield gave him for his weekly allowance. (Why the _fuck_ didn’t he have a back account?)



 

  1. He didn’t have enough cash to fly to the Shield HQs in other countries, but he did have enough money for bus fare. He’d go to every HQ he knew of and find a way to get to Fury.



 

  1. Get to Fury.



 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve knocked on Sharon/Kate’s door. He had a duffel bag over one shoulder, stock full of a few spare outfits, all the money he could find in his apartment, some food, a few weapons, and his old sketchbook. Over his other shoulder was a slim backpack that only held his shield.

 

He adjusted the sleeves of Peggy’s jacket as he waited.

 

Sharon wasn’t home.

 

Mother _fucker_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve knew of four other Shield locations in the USA.

 

  1. Manhattan, NY
  2. Washington D.C.
  3. Miami, FL
  4. Phoenix, AZ



 

He was absolutely certain that more of them existed—there was likely at least one in every region—but he hadn’t had the motivation to see if they did.

 

Steve decided to go to Phoenix first, then Miami, then D.C. He wasn’t sure if longest distance to shortest distance was an efficient plan, but if he were avoiding somebody, he’d go as far away as possible without looking like a coward.

 

The bus ride to Phoenix was long and surprisingly expensive. By the time they arrived, Steve’s injuries had mostly healed, but he had a crick in his neck that certainly wouldn’t go away for hours.

 

The receptionist at the Phoenix HQ looked like a prepubescent teen, but Steve knew that Shield hired the most unlikely threats as the first face seen on purpose.

 

Steve strode up to the desk, resolute to keep his cool. “Hi. I have a meeting with Nick Fury?”

 

The boy’s eyes flicked all over his face. “Hm. Name?”

 

“James Carter.”

 

The boy typed it in at his laptop. “Sorry, Mr. Carter. You’re not in the records here at all.”

 

Steve took a deep breath. “ _Please_ ,” he whispered. “Someone’s going to get hurt.”

 

The boy laughed, but his eyes were hard. “I’m sorry, sir. This is a telephone company. The only time anyone gets hurt here is if there’s a power surge.”

 

“I need to—“

 

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

He got the same results in Miami.

 

As Steve walked out of the door, counting his minuscule remaining funds, which would just barely cover the bus ride to D.C. and a snack, he scratched his face, noticing the stubble with surprise.

 

He didn’t know if he wanted to shave.

 

He didn’t have the money for a razor either way.

 

He got on the bus to D.C.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The Triskelion, unlike the other three facilities, acted as a building of an intelligence agency with checkpoints and codes and shit. Only the most prestigious agents had access to the building. Steve had only been there once, when he was meeting his strike team.

 

Steve knew that it would be much more difficult to get in here, so he’d have to be a lot bolder.

 

He approached the gate, aware that he looked very much worse-for-wear. He hadn’t showered in over a week now.

 

The guard rolled down his window, face expressionless. “Can I help you?”

 

“I’m here to see Nick Fury,” Steve said.

 

“Are you an agent?”

 

Steve took a deep breath. “I’m Steve Rogers.”

 

The guard went perfectly still, staring at him from behind sunglasses. “Son, that man has been dead for seventy years, and quite frankly, you’re disrespecting his memory with this—this joke.”

 

“I can prove it,” Steve said, too tired to be rude. “I have the shield.”

 

The guard set his jaw. “Turn around. Go _home_.”

 

Steve gave him a bleak look. “Strike Team A. Have any of them checked in?”

 

“You’re not privy to that information.”

 

Steve clenched his fists. “Tell Director Fury—“ he said, voice shaking a little bit in anger. “Tell him that I fucking tried to warn him. You have moles. Root out the fucking problem.”

 

Furiously, Steve turned on heel and marched away, cursing his fucking life and his fucking anger. He could let Shield collapse and burn. He could stand by and watch. He’d saved the world once, and he’d saved New York a lot, and he didn’t have to fucking do a thing anymore besides watch the empires crumble.

 

(He didn’t believe that. He didn’t believe it for a second.)

 

But what else was he supposed to fucking do?

 

He couldn’t go home, if his Manhattan apartment had ever been home in the first place. He didn’t have the money to go anywhere else, down to five dollars and eighty-two cents. He couldn’t—he couldn’t stay here.

 

Steve Rogers was a man out of time, a man out of place, a man out of luck.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He wasn’t sure how long he walked, or in which direction.

 

By the time it was dark outside (and cold—so fucking cold that he had to zip up Peggy’s jacket even as he thought about freezing to death with wild, frantic hope), he was deep in the city.

 

He was only sure of one thing, and that thing was that D.C. had the most confusing layout he’d ever come across, second only to maybe Paris.

 

Steve spent two dollars and ninety-nine cents on a hot dog with dwindling energy.

 

God, he had absolutely no idea what to do or where to go.

 

Maybe it would be better after some—some rest. He hadn’t slept for more than twenty minutes since the oil rig incident. He may start to get delusional, and that wouldn’t help anyone.

 

He was just going to rest for a minute. Just _one_ minute.

 

Steve leaned against the nearest wall and slowly slid down until he was slumped into a sitting position. He propped the backpack with his shield behind him, and it was uncomfortable, but it was safer.

 

He’d just close his eyes for one minute.

 

One minute before he started moving again.

 


	3. 02: D.C.'S FINEST SHELTER

Steve woke up at dawn.

 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hissed, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. He had to keep moving. He didn’t know where, but this kind of shit wasn’t an option.

 

Steve tried to lurch to his feet, but his vision went blurry then black, and he slumped back against the wall.

 

That wasn’t good.

 

He needed food. The serum would start metabolizing fat and muscle faster and faster until Steve slipped into a coma or some shit. Or so he assumed, based on previous experience.

 

The last time he’d gone three days without eating during the war, Gabe had shoved him to his feet and forced rolls of stale bread down his throat, watching intently, and then he and Dernier held him down until he passed out. He woke up two days later.

 

Steve closed his eyes. He’d stolen food in the ‘30s plenty of times, but he’d also made sure he only stole from the butcher who wouldn’t let black people inside or the vendor with a big sign that said NO SERVICE FOR JEWS. It was his own form of justice.

 

It would be harder to steal nowadays. He was big and drew people’s attention. When he was small, people had no difficulty ignoring him.

 

Except…

 

People passed by him, on their way to work or something, and didn’t glance his way. As Steve tried to rationalize his way through finding something to eat, he realized that he may in fact still be invisible.

 

Steve finally rose to his feet after twenty minutes of breathing shakily through his nose and tipping his head down to encourage blood flow. He lifted his bags with moderate difficulty and started walking.

 

After a few hours, he spotted a few men in suits having a conversation outside a restaurant, piles of food set in front of them. He listened in on their conversation, and they didn’t seem like terrible people, so Steve clearly couldn’t justify stealing from them. Steve spotted a burger wrapped in foil. He closed his eyes as his stomach cramped. He couldn’t do this. Not anymore.

 

Steve returned to his spot from earlier in the day in defeat, vision still spotty. He’d been able to murder the people he’d called his teammates with no hesitation, but he couldn’t fucking steal a burger from a businessman? God. His pathetic moral code needed to be rebuffed.

 

Or not.

 

Steve leaned his head back against the rough cement of the wall and thought.

 

Nobody knew he was gone because he didn’t have anybody.

 

Steve didn’t particularly care what happened to himself.

 

In fact, he almost wanted something horrible to happen to himself just so that he could feel _something_.

 

There were people waiting for him, but they weren’t in this century.

 

Steve didn’t know if he believed in the afterlife anymore, but even if there was nothing after death, he’d share the same nothingness as Bucky and the Howlies and Sarah and maybe Peggy soon. And maybe that was enough for his eternity. Maybe he could stop caring about the world and Shield and everything that kept him here.

 

With the cold setting into his bones, Steve decided to go on a hunger strike.

 

It wasn’t the worst way to die. He’d probably get used to the gnawing, dizzying sensation of hunger after a few days, and then he’d just fall asleep and never wake up. As far as deaths went, it sounded pretty reasonable. A lot more appealing than—

 

—drowning.

 

Steve reached behind him and pressed his knuckles against the wall. He took a deep breath through his nose, but the cold air rushing through his system only made it worse, and he couldn’t stop thinking about how fucking _cold_ it had been and—

 

Steve dragged his knuckles down the wall and felt the skin tear and the muscles spasm against the force. When he let his hands fall into his lap, they ran red with blood like a sadistic painting of a martyr.

 

Steve watched the blood stop flowing, and he watched his skin slowly knit itself together, and when only faint scabs remained, he looked up, and it was morning.

 

How much time did he have before it all stopped? His fingers and toes tingled numbly with the cold. Steve reached up and scratched at his stubbly face. His hair was getting longer. Maybe he’d be unrecognizable when he died.

 

Steve glared at people as they walked by out of habit, tracking their movements, calculating their threat levels. It passed the time as his stomach groaned and ached and his head got fuzzier and fuzzier.

 

He noticed the man who was noticing him on the third day.

 

The man ran at an irregular schedule—sometimes at the crack of dawn, sometimes as the sun started crawling across the horizon, but most often when the world was dark and quiet. Maybe he was an insomniac. Steve watched him as the man watched him back, and he had never thought that being acknowledged could be such a raw, painful feeling.

 

At any rate, he was wary of the man who ran like he had nightmares on his heels. He looked strong, and Steve could just about picture the muscles in his back shifting with each stride. He could be dangerous if he ever did anything more than watch Steve.

 

When the woman joined him, Steve didn’t recognize her at first. Her hair was different—a little bit brighter and substantially shorter, and Steve’s thoughts were rooted more in the 20th century than this one, but Natasha Romanoff was the woman that ran with the man who watched Steve.

 

It set off every warning bell in Steve’s head, but at this point, he was too exhausted to care much. If Shield wanted him back, they could fucking take him. He didn’t give a shit anymore.

 

Steve idly dragged his knuckles down the wall and fiddled with the material of his duffle, frowning as a thick drop of blood fell onto the green of the fabric and spread out to make it look black. His hands shook with a fine tremor, even though he didn’t feel scared.

 

Steve drifted in and out of unconsciousness, and he hated the nightmares that played out behind his eyelids. Even though he tried his best to stay awake, it was a futile battle. He was dying.

 

And no one would miss him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve dreamed that he was back in the war.

 

“What’re you gonna do when this is all over?” Morita asked, staring at the sky as the snow fell down hard.

 

It was a topic that was firmly off-limits, but every day, it seemed more and more likely that they were gonna win this war, and they could dare to hope just a little bit. Maybe these conversations _were_ harmless after all.

 

“I’m gonna become an alcoholic,” Falsworth said.

 

“I’m gonna become a Shield agent and die in action,” Dugan said.

 

“I’m gonna have PTSD and won’t be able to give my kids the attention they deserve,” Gabe said.

 

“I will die of a heart attack in a few decades,” Dernier said.

 

“Yeah. I’m gonna die without seeing justice for Japanese Americans,” Morita said.

 

Steve turned to Bucky, and he grinned at the sky. His face was pale, his neck was at an unnatural angle, and blood ran from his eyes, his nose, his mouth. “I’m not gonna make it.” He reached over and grabbed Steve’s hand, and Steve saw that his own fingers had gone black with the cold. “You won’t either.”

 

Steve turned, and it was all blood and ashes and gore, and he gagged, but he couldn’t escape it and—

 

He woke up with a sharp intake of breath, but he forced himself to keep his eyes closed and breathe out slowly. He didn’t shift. There was somebody right in front of him, and he wasn’t dumb enough to provide further indication that he was awake.

 

“ _Shit_ ,” he heard Natasha Romanoff say, and his eyes snapped open.

 

The man who watched him was looking at his shield. “What the _fuck_ ,” Steve snapped.

 

The man froze, and Natasha Romanoff shifted into a fighting stance.

 

Steve yanked his backpack out of the man’s hands and lurched to his feet, heart racing with panic. He was made. They knew who he was. They knew _what_ he was. He had to get out of here now.

 

“Dude,” the man said, holding up his hands peaceably. Steve stumbled a few steps back, unwilling to turn around just yet. “I’m just trying to help.”

 

“Stay the _fuck_ away from me,” Steve spat. His eyes flicked to Natasha Romanoff, and his lips curled cruelly. “Way to fucking 180.” First Shield wanted him gone and now they couldn’t leave him alone? That was unjust. That didn’t make any sense. “I don’t want any part of you people anymore.”

 

Natasha Romanoff pressed her lips together like she wanted to say something, and the man’s brows were furrowed in confusion, and Steve couldn’t take it anymore. He turned and ran.

 

Or… “ran.” It was more of a lopsided, frantic, staggering fast-walk. He ran out of steam for that pretty quickly, and he leaned against a brick wall, eyes closed, trying to breathe.

 

“Jesus,” a woman said. A hand laid on his shoulder delicately, and Steve flinched. “Sir? Can you hear me?” Steve pressed his lips together and shook his head. The woman swore. “I’m gonna get you to a shelter, okay?”

 

Steve shook his head. “ _No_ ,” he said, but the woman started dragging him along, and he could do nothing but follow.

 

He lasted for a few minutes. The woman tugged at his arm, and Steve sagged and started to pitch forward. “Oh god,” the woman said, and everything faded away.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Is he dead?”

 

“No, look—he’s breathing.”

 

“That’s not sayin’ much.”

 

“Motherfucker,” Steve slurred, and the voices blurred together again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

There was a sharp sensation in Steve’s arm, and he mumbled something about _needles_ , and then there was something cold against his forehead. A callused hand.

 

“Shh,” a man said. Steve’s eyes flicked open for a moment, and he caught the glimpse of a guy with a strong jaw and scars on his face. “Rest.”

 

Steve closed his eyes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Castle, we need you out of here.”

 

“If this guy dies, the shelter’s gonna get bad fucking publicity.”

 

“Someone else can—“

 

“No one else wants to.”

 

There was a beat of silence, and Steve’s bones ached. “Fine,” the stranger finally said.

 

A moment later, Steve felt the cold sensation of medicine rushing into his veins. He must’ve made a face because the man—Castle?— smiled and said, “Me too, pal.”

 

Steve grimaced and faded away.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was the middle of the night when Steve woke up, feverish and sweaty and shaking with incoherent memories or nightmares (he couldn’t tell), and he grabbed Castle’s wrist hard.

 

Castle stared at him, expression unreadable, and Steve tried for a glare. “Why?”

 

Castle put his free hand on the mat Steve was lying on. His eyes were intense when he said, “I’m a fuckin’ Good Samaritan.”

 

Steve smiled, and he wondered if blood was on his teeth or something because Castle’s expression flickered with something uncomfortable. “I don’t believe you.”

 

Castle’s answering smile was wry. “You shouldn’t.”

 

Steve lost consciousness a moment later, his hand falling back onto his chest with a weak little thud.

 

 

* * *

 

 

A hand combed through his hair, and Steve reflexively leaned into the touch. He wanted to smile, but he knew he shouldn’t. “Peg,” he whispered, and his voice was raw.

 

The hand withdrew. “Sorry, buddy. Just me.”

 

Steve sat up and breathed through the spell of dizziness that followed. Castle crouched next to him, looking a little wary and a little tired. “Oh,” Steve said. “Sorry.”

 

Castle waved him off. “Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

 

Steve shook off the well of grief in his chest and touched the sleeves of his—

 

“Where’s my jacket?”

 

Castle frowned. “Oh, it’s—“

 

“Where the _fuck_ —“

 

“Chill, buddy,” Castle said, scowling. He reached over and grabbed a lump of fabric—leather, Steve realized—and threw it at Steve.

 

Steve yanked it on his shoulders, glaring at Castle the whole way. “Where am I,” he demanded.

 

Castle rolled his eyes. “D.C.’s finest shelter.”

 

Steve threw off the sweat-stained blankets and moved to stand up. “No fuckin’ way.”

 

“Hey, I don’t wanna be here either.”

 

“Fuck you. You brought me here, didn’t you?” Steve snapped, getting to his feet.

 

Castle followed, and they stood nose to nose. “I was fucking stopping by to check on a _friend_ when they dragged your half-dead ass in here.”

 

Steve reached down and threw his backpack over one shoulder. “I didn’t ask for help.”

 

“You were fucking dying.”

 

“Maybe I wanted that.”

 

“Nobody fucking wants that,” Castle snarled, eyes flaring with anger.

 

“Try me.” Steve took a step forward and shoved Castle’s shoulders. He didn’t move as much as Steve would have liked.

 

Castle looked him up and down, evaluating. He shook his head, scoffing a little bit. “I know who you are, big shot.”

 

Steve straightened his shoulders. “Then you know to get outta my fuckin’ way.”

 

Castle laughed a little bit, the sound harsh and rough. “No.”

 

Steve glared and looked to reach for his duffle. He grabbed it and slung it over his other shoulder. “Move.”

 

“Look around you, Rogers,” Castle said, voice low, but Steve didn’t take his eyes off Castle’s face. “ _Look_ at them.”

 

Steve reluctantly forced himself to inspect his surroundings.

 

They were in the back corner of a room that looked like a high school gym, the floor covered with hundreds of mats with cheap old blankets. Most of them hosted a sleeping body. Steve looked to his left, eyes landing on a man with one finger on his right hand staring off into the middle distance. “Hypothermia,” Castle said when Steve looked a beat too long.

 

Steve took a deep breath. “What are you trying to say?”

 

“I’m saying you shouldn’t act fucking high and mighty just because you’re not gonna lose your damn fingers. You’re one of us, right?”

 

Homeless? Starving? On his way to a slow death? Yes, but— “I’m not like you.”

 

Castle hummed. “Don’t act so insulted, man.” He leaned forward and gripped Steve’s shoulder. “You may be above us, but you still fucking owe me now.”

 

“That’s why you helped me,” Steve said blankly, and it was supposed to come out a question, but it didn’t.

 

Castle shrugged. “Doesn’t matter why. Only matters that I did.” He tipped his head back, eyes bright. “Name’s Frank Castle, in case we ever run into each other again. I’m sure we will.” With that, he stepped back and to the side.

 

Steve stared at him for another minute before taking a step over the mat, towards the exit. When Frank didn’t stop him, he took another step. Then another.

 

It took a long breath, suspended in tense uncertainty, for Steve to get out of there.

 

At the doors, a tired person (who was clearly not homeless) said, “Sir, I highly advise against leaving the premises. It’s about four degrees outside, and there’s a hypothermia warning.”

 

Steve ignored them and shoved his way through the doors.

 

The wind tore through his clothes, and Steve zipped up his jacket and shoved his hands in his pockets. He may not be on the brink of dehydration/starvation anymore, but that didn’t mean he felt _healthy_. He closed his eyes for a moment, at a loss of what to do.

 

Steve Rogers was one of the greatest strategists of modern history. If he couldn’t fucking figure out what to do, he deserved to be relegated to a homeless shelter with Frank’s judgmental, angry eyes.

 

He let out a breath, watching it curl through the frigid air. He wouldn’t think about Italy. He wouldn’t think about the Alps. He wouldn’t think about the Arctic Ocean.

 

Steve walked briskly, finally settling into a little brick nook that mostly sheltered him from the wind. He could regroup here until the morning. Maybe then he’d find a library. Do some research on—on—on _what_?

 

He put his head in his hands. God, this was a mess. This was a damn _mess_.

 

Steve dozed fitfully, and when it was finally morning and the slightest bit warmer, he rose to his feet with a set jaw and renewed purpose. He was going to find as much research as he could on the Black Widow.

 

It took a while to find a public library, but he finally bit the bullet and politely asked a stranger, who was fairly nice when directing him to it.

 

Steve put his duffle under his chair and didn’t dare take off his backpack as he sat in front of a desktop computer.

 

He read the entire Wikipedia article on her, which didn’t provide much information that he didn’t already know. Then, he resignedly clicked on a conspiracy blog and read a bunch of crazy-ass theories.

 

Until he saw something that was true.

 

**BLACK WIDOW IN THE DISTRICT OF COLOMBIA? DOES THIS MEAN… WAR?!?**

 

Steve frowned. Obviously, he didn’t trust the declaration of war, but he did need to find out how this person knew that Natasha Romanoff was in D.C.

 

The blog entry was vague at best, but it drew Steve to a grainy picture of Romanoff as she looked now compared to the famous picture of her during the Battle of New York.

 

Steve sighed, closing his eyes. If she’d been exposed by the paparazzi, then this was a dead end.

 

But then he found the picture used without crop and zoom.

 

Romanoff stood outside of a building three blocks away from the Triskelion—Steve had used it for a meet-up once before. She glared at some fixed point towards the viewer, but off to the side.

 

Steve zoomed in on the figures of every other person in the image and found one person he recognized, and he just so happened to be in Romanoff’s line of sight.

 

Brock Rumlow.

 

Sure, his face was scarred and mostly obscured by how he was walking, but Steve would never be able to forget anything about how he looked, and he knew his eyes weren’t mistaken.

 

He was _alive_ and he was in DC and Romanoff _knew_.

 

Steve clenched his fist by the mouse and took a deep, steady breath.

 

He couldn’t take down Rumlow like this.

 

Or could he?

 

No. He couldn’t. Not now, at least. What he needed to do was find Romanoff again and get her to tell him what she knew.

 

He had a plan now.

 

And by god, he was gonna follow it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Mostly.

 

Frank’s words rang in his head, and the sight of the man with only one finger left kept flashing back in his mind, so Steve must have wandered back towards the shelter.

 

As soon as he realized what he was doing and where he was going, Steve shook his head and turned in a different direction. He didn’t have time to worry about homeless people that he couldn’t help. He had to find Natasha Romanoff.

 

Steve leaned against a wall after an hour and debated stealing something again. He was getting hungry and fucking tired. He pressed his fingers into his eyes. This was more difficult than he’d thought.

 

He shivered, letting his hand fall to his side as he blinked blearily at his surroundings.

 

“Fuck,” Steve whispered, voice cracking as he watched a flurry of snow blow through the alley he was evidently in. This was okay. This was fine. He just had to keep moving. Keep the blood flowing. Keep going.

 

Steve pushed off the wall even as the snow started to come down harder, and he looked at his bare hands. His vision flashed, and holy fuck he wasn’t going to have any fingers they were going to turn black and fall off with hypothermia and Steve was—Steve was—

 

No. _No_. He wasn’t drowning. He was in D.C.

 

A blast of cold air carrying tiny a million tiny snowflakes hit him in the face, and Steve gasped. Shit. _Fuck_. He was going to fucking freeze and he was going to fucking drown and die, choking on ice and blood and terror that he didn’t want to feel. It was happening _again_ , and there was nothing he could do _again_ besides wait for the end, but what if the end didn’t come again?

 

Steve choked on heavy, gulping breaths, his knees giving out. He couldn’t do this anymore. He just—he couldn’t.

 

Steve curled into the fetal position, pressing his face into his backpack as he tried to breathe, quite possibly in vain. That was what killed him when he was drowning. That was what had sped up the process. He’d tried to breathe, and ice had lodged its way into his lungs and his heart and his soul, and Steve wasn’t sure that it had ever left.

 

“Dude,” someone said over the roar of the wind, close. Steve flinched but didn’t—couldn’t—move. A foot nudged his back. “This is my spot. Get up.”

 

“Are you sure he’s not dead?” a gruff voice asked, sounding only vaguely interested.

 

“He moved,” the first voice said. She sounded young. Younger than the gruff man, anyway.

 

“Maybe he’s _dying_ ,” another little voice said very pointedly with a pretty heavy Mexican accent, and Steve felt two little hands on his back. He jerked.

 

“Oh, fuck off,” the gruff voice snapped.

 

“You two. Cut it out,” said a new voice, hard and imposing.

 

“<I will when he does>,” the little girl voice muttered in Spanish.

 

“Stop _doing_ that,” the gruff voice snapped. “I can’t fucking—“

 

“<I bother to learn English, but you never bother learning Spanish!>”

 

The first voice laughed. “You have a point, _chica_.”

 

“No, she doesn’t,” the gruff voice muttered. “I’m lying the fuck down. This half-dead _fuck_ has the right idea.”

 

There was a pause, and the little voice said, “Daddy, wait,” before she presumably followed him.

 

Steve felt one of them move closer, likely the owner of the first voice. She put a hand on the back of his head, and Steve tried to jerk away, but his muscles were all locked tight. “What is he?” the first voice asked quietly.

 

“Looks like a veteran,” the imposing voice answered lowly.

 

“Do you want me to get him out of here?”

 

The imposing voice sighed. “Let him stay the night,” she said with no small ounce of reluctance.

 

“…Okay.”

 

“You should get some sleep too, Mac,” she added. “I’ll get on first watch.”

 

“Fine,” the first voice—Mac—muttered. Steve felt her lie down somewhere near him. Her eyes were on him, he knew. “You think he’s dangerous?”

 

“All veterans are dangerous,” the gruff voice answered from further away.

 

Mac touched Steve’s hand, balled into a fist. “He’s gonna get frostbite.” Steve shuddered violently.

 

“So, what? You have fucking gloves to spare?”

 

“No,” Mac snapped.

 

“Thought so.”

 

“ _Increíble_ ,” Mac muttered.

 

“I say let the lucky motherfucker die.”

 

Mac, and everyone else, didn’t respond. She reached for Steve’s duffle and unzipped it. Steve tried for a growl of protest, but it came out a pained groan instead that he barely heard over the wind. He managed to turn his head.

 

Mac rifled through the materials Steve had packed, scowling. “This guy has a sketchbook but no fuckin’ gloves?”

 

Her eyes flicked towards him, and their gazes caught. Mac froze, and Steve tried for a shrug. “Seemed important at the time,” he mumbled and closed his eyes.

 

“Shit, _chico_ ,” Mac hissed.

 

“Let him sleep,” the intimidating voice snapped, and Mac scowled, but she zipped his duffle and returned to her spot on the ground near Steve.

 

“This conversation isn’t over,” she grumbled at Steve, even though he’d returned his face to his backpack and become unresponsive again.

 

He had no dreams that night apart from an unending, high, reedy scream of wind.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve woke up the next morning with a similar train of thought to when he’d woken up in Shield in 2011.

 

_What the fuck._

_Where the fuck._

_How the fuck._

 

He propped himself up on one elbow to find a woman with short golden hair glaring at him from the opposite side of the alley.

 

Steve dared looking away to examine his fingers.

 

All in-tact. Of course.

 

He looked back up. He expected the scary blonde woman to say something, but she didn’t. She just watched him with a critical gaze meant to expose. Steve opted to glare back at her.

 

The little girl woke up not too long after, and she walked over to the blonde woman and whispered something to her. Her eyes flicked between Steve and the man jerking in his sleep on the ground. His beard was dusted with a fine layer of snow, similar to the ground. He twitched, and the little girl looked at the blonde woman with intent.

 

The blonde woman rubbed her eyes and appeared to consider. Finally, she nodded tiredly. The little girl offered a curt nod and went to sit next to her father, putting her little hand on his chest as it raggedly rose and fell. After a while, he grabbed her hand tight, evidently no longer restlessly asleep, but he kept his eyes shut tight as his daughter looked at him sadly.

 

Mac awoke next, sitting up and leaning against the wall closest to them. Her eyes tracked Steve as he did nothing besides continue his staring contest with the blonde lady.

 

After an eternity, the blonde woman said in her imposing voice, “You can stay with us.”

 

“What,” Mac said blankly.

 

The blonde woman shot her a dark look before retuning her attention to Steve. “For now.”

 

Steve glared. “I don’t want to stay.” His voice was rough and low and scarier than he remembered it. The gruff man kept hold of his daughter’s hand and watched him with narrowed eyes.

 

“I don’t believe you,” the blonde woman said.

 

Steve blinked, realizing that _shit_ —she was right. He didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t want to fucking wander these streets forever. But he wasn’t going to tell her that, so he just scowled.

 

“I’m Carol,” the blonde woman said breezily, dusting some snow off her pants.

 

Next to him, Mac sighed in resignation. “I’m America,” she said, and she jutted her chin up challengingly as if Steve was about to question her or some shit. He didn’t.

 

The gruff man and his daughter offered twin hostile expressions, evidently not willing to offer their names.

 

“That’s Logan and Laura,” America finally said. Logan and Laura both scowled harder, and then everyone was looking at him with some kind of venomous expectance.

 

He pressed his knuckles against the wall behind him. “Steve,” he whispered, daring to hope he’d have the luxury of being referred to by his real name.

 

Laura sat in Logan’s lap as Logan began to cough a rattling cough that Steve remembered all too well from his childhood. Laura said, “<This will work.>”

 

“It better,” Carol muttered.

 

Steve’s paranoia flared, and he narrowed his eyes, but Laura just blinked at him owlishly and Carol was clearly the personification of a brick wall. He glanced at America. She just crossed her arms.

 

Great.

 

Honestly, being surrounded by a squad of angry homeless people was preferable to how he’d been going on yesterday, so Steve wasn’t entirely uncomfortable. Still, he dragged his knuckles down the wall hard and quick.

 

America flinched and Carol raised her eyebrows and Logan and Laura stared at him in blank surprise.

 

Steve tried to ignore them and inspected the stinging scrapes. They weren’t too deep.

 

Carol cleared her throat and rose to her feet. “I’m going to get us some food.” With that, she briskly walked out of the alley.

 

America leaned towards Steve. “Why do you have a sketchbook?”

 

Steve bristled. “Why does Carol call you ‘Mac’?”

 

America rolled her eyes. “They’re my fucking initials. Next question.” In her eyes was hunger for a challenge or a fight, and Steve felt sick with déjà vu.

 

“Who the fuck are all of you?” he demanded, drawing his knees up to his chest.

 

“Homeless,” America said blandly.

 

Steve felt a dull pang, wondering if that was her only identifier, but he pushed the feeling away. “Why keep me here?”

 

America’s expression clouded over, and she glanced over at Laura and Logan. Logan was staring into the middle distance and had wrapped one arm around Laura’s torso. Laura appeared to be tolerating the affection and trying not to snuggle into it.

 

“You look lost,” America finally answered.

 

“I don’t believe you.”

 

America eyed him critically. “You shouldn’t,” she said, and Steve crushed the urge to shiver. “Who are you, then?”

 

Steve mulled over his answer for a moment. He couldn’t expect to stay here without offering a little bit of himself. Not the whole truth, but shadows of it. “A homeless veteran. Like him,” he said, jerking his head in Logan’s direction.

 

“Carol too,” America offered. Her assessing expression didn’t change. “Where’d you serve.”

 

“Classified,” Steve said, which wasn’t a lie.

 

“Logan too, but he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about honor.”

 

“I don’t fucking know _why_ the government needs us in Brazil, but I was definitely there,” Logan muttered, not looking at them.

 

“Dishonorably discharged,” America added.

 

Logan shrugged, glaring at whatever he’d been looking at. Laura patted his arm.

 

Steve wondered if he’d ever been formally discharged. He tried to care. “And Carol?”

 

“Afghanistan before she did officer shit stateside. She was kind of a big deal.”

 

Steve frowned, wondering how she ended up homeless then. Big shots usually ended up with more money.

 

“I don’t know,” America said, answering his question without him speaking.

 

Steve rubbed his eyes. “What about you?”

 

“Don’t worry about me,” America said.

 

Steve rolled his eyes, shoving his backpack behind him and feeling the familiar uncomfortable press of the shield against his back.

 

“Luggage,” Laura whispered to Logan, and Logan snickered before it devolved into another coughing fit.

 

Steve looked down at his hands and scratched at his stubbly face. “I have more questions than answers,” he mused aloud.

 

“Well,” Logan said after a brief stretch of quiet. They locked eyes, and he grinned a near-feral grin. “Welcome to the fucking clique.”


	4. 03: THE FUCKING CLIQUE

Carol returned about a half hour later with food.

 

It was likely stolen, but Steve didn’t ask and when Carol handed him a fat roll of bread, he ate it in three bites.

 

After they’d finished eating, everyone started gathering their things, which didn’t consist of a whole awful lot.

 

“Where are you going?” Steve asked, making sure his voice absolutely did _not_ sound panicked.

 

America gave him a look. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” she muttered.

 

“What?”

 

“Don’t be a fucking asshole,” Logan said, heaving to his feet with a wince. Steve looked at him in surprise. “You weren’t planning on telling him in the first place.”

 

America grinned at Logan, and Steve cast his gaze heavenward in resignation. “Let’s get moving,” Carol said.

 

Laura patted Steve’s duffle as she passed him. “This is too big.”

 

Steve refused to admit that he’d been getting tired of carrying it around. He’d been thinking of ditching most of the shit in the duffle and shoving his sketchbook and a few cursory weapons into the backpack, but now he just scowled and said, “I can handle it.”

 

Laura shrugged and reached for Logan’s hand as he limped towards her. Steve wondered why Logan let her stay with him if there were alternatives. Like an orphanage or a foster home or something.

 

He mulled it over as he watched Carol straighten out her jacket. Logan seemed like the paranoid type. Maybe he didn’t trust child protective services with his daughter. Steve concluded that this made the most sense as he glared down at the dusting of snow on the ground, already looking dirty and sad.

 

Everyone was geared up to leave, and Steve tried to hide his frustration. He evidently didn’t do a great job because Carol sighed and said, “You go with America.”

 

“Why _me_?” America asked, appalled.

 

“You’re the one who found him,” Carol said dismissively.

 

America turned a fierce glare on Steve, and Steve shifted uncomfortably.

 

“Fine,” she finally muttered. “Come on, _chico_.”

 

Steve felt vaguely scared as he followed America out of the alley. It nearly stopped him from asking the question blaring in his mind, “What do you do all day?”

 

America gave him a flat look.

 

“Sorry,” Steve mumbled.

 

America let out a long-suffering breath. “Fine, okay. I help kids.”

 

Steve frowned. “Kids?”

 

“Yes. Kids. Homeless kids.”

 

“Oh,” Steve said, feeling stupid and worthless.

 

“Most of them have parents or wind up in orphanages,” America went on. “But there are some—mostly teens actually—who stay away on purpose. They don’t like my help 90% of the time, but they get it anyway.”

 

“That’s…”

 

“Yeah,” America finished, slightly uncomfortable. “You could say that.”

 

“Do you even know where they are?”

 

“Not always. They have spots, though. Kids are fuckin’ predictable.” She looked at him sideways, expression twisting unhappily. “They’ll be even less willing to talk with you around, which Carol should’ve known.”

 

Steve ran a hand through his hair self-consciously. “I can… go away.”

 

“May as well stick around now,” America sniffed.

 

Steve was getting approximately eighty conflicting signals from America, so he just opted to hesitantly follow half a step behind her.

 

“You’ll have to ditch your bulk eventually,” America said after a while, glancing at his duffle. “If you’re planning on staying with us, anyway. We move around a lot.”

 

“Okay,” Steve said slowly. He was stubborn to a fault, but he didn’t want to get on America’s bad side even more than he already was. Plus, he didn’t really _need_ all of this shit.

 

America hummed, fiddling with the worn straps of her own little backpack. She stopped in her tracks. “Do it now. Hurry.”

 

Steve stopped and stared at her for a long moment. America widened her eyes and motioned to get moving. Steve unceremoniously dropped his duffle and unzipped it, rifling through the contents for the shit he wanted to keep.

 

He removed:

  * His sketchbook
  * Two guns and some ammo
  * His water bottle (empty)
  * One extra t-shirt



 

America eyed him warily as he put his weapons in his backpack, but she didn’t say anything. Logan and Carol _had_ to have some sort of weapons, right? It wasn’t a big deal. When he was finished, America took the duffle and dropped it on the porch of an office. “They’re not open yet, but they take donations,” she explained shortly. “Let’s go.”

 

Steve glanced back at his duffle one last time, thankful that he had nothing personal in there. Nobody’d be able to identify him.

 

It became apparent quickly that America knew exactly where they were going but was taking a really convoluted route in order to try to disorient Steve. It was a clever sentiment, but Steve’s photographic memory would make any such attempt pretty useless. He kept quiet.

 

America finally slowed and threw Steve a fierce glare. “Don’t fuck this up for me.” Steve held up his hands peaceably.

 

They approached a group of teenagers lounging around a fire pit. “Yo, America,” one of them shouted. “Wassup?”

 

America shrugged, walking forward and sitting down next to one of the kids. “Not much.”

 

“Who’s your friend?” another kid asked, eyeing Steve warily.

 

“Steve,” America said, stretching. “Don’t worry about him. He’s like a goddamn lost puppy.”

 

Steve bristled. He was _not_.

 

The kids laughed, but Steve could see them withdrawing a little bit, uncomfortable with the adult presence. He shifted his weight and turned around.

 

America grabbed his arm, evidently faster than Steve had accounted for. “Where are you going?”

 

“To fill up my water bottle,” Steve said, locking eyes with her and trying to convey his meaning.

 

America’s stance went from rigid to relaxed so quickly that Steve had to blink a few times. “Oh. Thank you.”

 

Steve nodded. “Dunno when I’ll be back.” He shrugged. “I may get lost.”

 

America looked visibly relieved. “You’ll figure it out.” She released him and walked back to her spot.

 

Steve walked purposefully slowly as he aimlessly searched for a water fountain. He found one in about an hour. He filled up his water bottle, then slowly drank everything before refilling it.

 

He didn’t belong with these people, he knew. His mere presence had compromised America’s mission. There was no telling what damage he would do if he ended up doing more than observation.

 

He wished the hunger strike had worked.

 

Steve’s backpack—heavy and therefore familiar—sat on his shoulders along with the weight of the world.

 

He took another sip of water.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was afternoon by the time he started getting antsy. He could either abandon the new group of people he’d found (which was probably for the best) and maybe try to find another shelter, or he could head back towards America and try to find out if there was any way he could be anything more than a useless piece of shit

 

Heading towards America, Steve thought, _This is fucked up_ , and, _Selfish_ , and, _Bucky would know how to deal with these kids_.

 

When he approached the spot, though, Steve paused to listen.

 

“Shut _up_! Shut the _fuck_ up! Don’t fucking move!” The voice was hysterical and rough and did not sound like it belonged to a teenager. Steve snuck a look around the corner.

 

A man twitched and jerked with wild eyes as he pointed a gun at one of the kids with a surprisingly steady aim. Everyone else was frozen, and Steve thought, _Of course_.

 

He rounded the corner. The man’s eyes flicked to him and back to the kid at gunpoint, and he shouted, “Take another fucking step, and I blow his _fucking_ brains out.”

 

“Okay,” Steve said slowly, holding up his hands. “I’m not moving.”

 

“Damn fucking _straight_ ,” the gunman spat.

 

“Jesus Christ,” the kid at gunpoint whimpered.

 

“What is it you want?” Steve asked, voice cold. “Money?”

 

The man looked offended. “If I fucking wanted _money_ , I wouldn’t fucking mug these broke-ass _kids_.”

 

“Then—“

 

“This motherfucker stole my fucking stash.”

 

“Just give it to him,” another kid whispered, voice thin.

 

“I used it,” the kid at gunpoint whispered back, squeezing his eyes shut.

 

“Un- _fucking_ -acceptable.”

 

“What was it?” Steve asked.

 

“Heroin,” the kid whispered, hunching his shoulders.

 

The gunman jerked violently, letting out a hysterical laugh. “I need my fucking stash, kid.”

 

“I don’t have any more.”

 

Steve did some snap calculations. He may be able to jump in front of the gun in time to tackle the gunman, but he needed to get a little bit closer. He took a cautious step and tried not to let out a big gushing breath of relief when the gunman didn’t notice.

 

At the same time, his eyes found America, and he watched as she slowly started to edge behind the gunman. They looked at each other, and America nodded.

 

“What am I gonna do, huh?” the gunman demanded. He looked heavenward for a moment, and Steve took another step. “What am I gonna _fucking_ do?”

 

A few more steps, and he’d spring into action.

 

“I don’t _know_.”

 

“I’ll tell you what,” the gunman hissed. “You’re gonna get my fucking stash back.”

 

Two more steps.

 

“I _can’t_ ,” the kid said desperately.

 

“You got _mine_ , didn’t you? Do it again.”

 

One step.

 

“But—“

 

Steve jumped in front of the gun. The gunman’s eyes went wild, and he squeezed the trigger as Steve slammed his hand into the gunman’s wrist. Screams echoed out from the alley, but he knew they weren’t screams of pain because _he_ felt the pain deep in his collarbone area. But as he’d hit the man’s wrist, he’d dropped the gun, and Steve caught it and pointed it at him through the familiar, deep pain as America slammed an empty bottle of beer on his head.

 

The gunman collapsed.

 

Steve flicked on the safety before dropping the gun. He pressed a fist into the bullet wound, taking deep, measured breaths.

 

“Oh my fucking _god_ ,” America hissed, and Steve blinked, and she was hovering in front of him, hands reaching for his shoulder before thinking better of it. “We need to take you to the hospital. You need—“

 

“’M fine,” Steve mumbled. “Just… need to sit down.”

 

“You got shot!”

 

“Happens.” Steve slid down the nearest wall and kept his eyes on the unconscious gunman. “Calm down your friends.”

 

America stared at him in disbelief.

 

“ _Go_.”

 

She hesitated for another minute before turning around, placing her hands on the shoulders of the kid who’d been held at gunpoint. Steve closed his eyes and pressed his head against the wall, breathing through the pain. If he could get America to stay with him for a few hours until the bullet was pushed out, maybe the other three wouldn’t know about his healing factor. He held onto the thought as he groped for his water bottle and took a drink.

 

America dropped to sit in front of him, glaring in attempt to hide her fear. “What do you need me to do?”

 

Steve let out a breath. “Just—wait.”

 

“ _Wait_?”

 

“Yeah.” He rolled his shoulder with a little grunt of pain. “Healing factor,” he whispered quietly enough that only she could hear.

 

America pressed a hand to her forehead. “Fuck.”

 

“What’re you gonna do about the guy?” Steve asked, trying not to think about the damage the bullet and the blood had done to his jacket.

 

“Leave him.”

 

“No police?”

 

“No,” America said tersely, and Steve decided not to press for now.

 

Steve was aware of the kids rapidly gathering their things and leaving, of them yelling at the kid who’d stolen the heroin, of them telling America in hushed voices where they’d be, but he dissociated enough to be removed from it.

 

“Do me a favor,” Steve said after everything had calmed down. “Grab me the gun?”

 

America handed it to him, and he removed the clip before shoving it into his backpack.

 

“I’m gonna take off my jacket.”

 

“It’s fucking below freezing, _chico_.”

 

Steve ignored her and held back a wince as he moved his arm out of the sleeve. He examined the small hole in the jacket’s shoulder and wiped at the blood. “Can you see the blood?” he asked, because to be fair, the blood was pretty dark, and so was the jacket.

 

America paused to look at it. “It’d just look like a miscellaneous stain to me,” she said.

 

Steve made a face. He needed to find sewing materials and patch the hole up first, but the stain wouldn’t go away. He’d figure it out. He’d have to.

 

His t-shirt was ruined, and Steve spared a minute to be glad that he grabbed a spare from his duffle. He examined the bullet wound, probing at the skin. As the gunshot had been at such close range, the bullet went pretty deep. It’d take a week, maybe, for the injury to heal completely. He may need a sling.

 

Steve took off his shirt and constructed a makeshift sling. He fiddled with it for a few minutes before trying to relax his muscles. He then noticed the cold against his bare skin.

 

“Put something on,” America said. “Please.”

 

“Next shirt will just get ruined,” Steve mumbled. “It’ll only be a few hours.”

 

After a little while, the man on the ground started to stir, and America went to grab another empty beer bottle to smash on his head, and he went still.

 

Steve grinned at her. “You’re good.”

 

America scowled. “Fuck off.”

 

Steve dozed off fitfully a few times before the bullet became visible. It squelched out of his skin in an agonizing wrench that lasted a few minutes before Steve breathed heavily and held the bloodstained bullet up in shaking fingers. “Nice, huh?”

 

“ _Puta madre_ ,” America muttered.

 

Steve tore off a strip from his shirt and tied it around the open wound to stem the blood flow. Then America finally persuaded him to put on his other shirt.

 

Steve reached for it, but America snatched the backpack away. “Don’t fucking pull a muscle. I got it.”

 

“Wait—“ Steve said, but she’d already opened the pack.

 

“The fuck is this?” she asked, letting the front flap fall open enough to reveal the shield.

 

Steve leaned forward and took the backpack away. “Nothing,” he muttered, grabbing the shirt and slipping it on before readjusting the sling.

 

America arched an eyebrow. “That looked _real_.”

 

“I’m a big fan of his,” Steve deadpanned. “It’s a collectable.”

 

America shook her head in disbelief. “He’s supposed to be dead, right?”

 

“Yeah,” Steve muttered, tense. He hesitated before putting on half his jacket, letting the right arm flap empty at his side.

 

“Steve,” America said, slotting together information in her head. “Steve Rogers.”

 

Steve glared at her. “Why don’t you just fucking shout it for the whole damn city?”

 

“I can’t believe this shit,” she muttered, actually having the balls to look and sound angry about it. “Why’re you fucking _homeless_.”

 

“None of your business,” Steve snapped. “You can’t tell the others,” he added in a smaller voice after a pause.

 

America looked at him with a speculative gaze for a long moment. “I don’t know you.”

 

“No,” Steve agreed quietly.

 

“But you’re fucking crazy.” America shook her head. “I’ll keep quiet for now.”

 

Steve tried not to look too visibly happy about that.

 

“For _now_ ,” America stressed threateningly. “Got it?”

 

“Yes,” Steve sighed, smothering a grin.

 

America rolled her yes. “We missed lunch.”

 

Steve shrugged.

 

“I’m gonna grab you something. Stay here.”

 

America returned a half hour later with two burgers. “You steal these?” Steve asked.

 

“Maybe.”

 

Steve didn’t care enough to not eat. “This is the best fucking burger I’ve ever had.”

  


 

America smiled.

 

They sat for another hour in mutual silence, staring at the body in front of them, refusing to acknowledge the metaphorical cat out of the bag.

 

“You good to move?” America asked finally.

 

“Should be,” Steve said.

 

“You dislocated your shoulder,” America said firmly.

 

“How clumsy of me.”

 

“Sucks to be you.”

 

Steve grinned and heaved to his feet, banishing the pain in his arm to the back of his mind. It was mostly an ache by now anyway.

 

America squeezed his uninjured shoulder, nodding at him. “We got this.”

 

Steve sincerely hoped so.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They were the first people back in the alley, and America scowled as she shoved Steve’s backpack into his lap and delicately arranged his arm on top of it so that he wouldn’t use it. Steve glared at her while she did so but didn’t bother arguing.

 

“You good?” America asked, definitely hovering.

 

Steve scowled. “Last month, I was shot _four times_ in worse places, and I didn’t need any fucking coddling.”

 

“Alright, alright, Jesus.”

 

Steve fiddled with the hole in his jacket, trying not to get upset about it. He distracted himself by watching America pace, likely working out their cover story in her head.

 

Logan and Laura walked into the alley sometime later. Laura poked America’s stomach and said, “You missed lunch.”

 

“<I know, girl. We had a little problem,>” she said in Spanish.

 

Laura frowned. Her gaze flicked to Steve, and she blinked a few times. “You okay?”

 

“Yep,” Steve said.

 

Logan frowned at him from behind his beard. “You hurt?” he asked gruffly.

 

Steve glanced at America. “Tripped. Dislocated my shoulder.”

 

Laura giggled. “Remember when you did that, daddy?”

 

Logan rolled his eyes, grumbling, “Shut the fuck up.” But it sounded fond. “America, why don’t you take Laura to grab something for dinner,” he said, eyes on Steve.

 

The hair on Steve’s arms stood on end. America shot Steve a look that Steve didn’t have the energy to interpret, and then it was just him and Logan.

 

Logan crouched down in front of him with a grunt. “You didn’t dislocate your fuckin’ shoulder, bub.”

 

Steve shrugged. “What’s it to you?”

 

“I don’t fuckin’ like being lied to.” He coughed into his fist for a moment before clearing his throat. _He must be sick_ , Steve thought absently. “You get stabbed?”

 

“Sorta,” Steve said.

 

Logan stared at him blankly. “Lemme see it.”

 

“No.”

 

“Lemme _see_ ,” Logan demanded.

 

Steve glared. “ _No_.”

 

“Jesus Christ, you’re all fucking children. Fine.” Logan heaved to his feet. “Bleed the fuck out. See if I care.”

 

They spent the next twenty minutes in stormy silence, exchanging occasional venomous glares until Laura and America returned with bags of chips. America passed the Doritos to Steve as she munched on BBQ chips.

 

Carol joined them soon after, and she glared at Steve’s injury too, but she didn’t look like she expected an explanation.

 

When it was time to sleep, America curled up into a ball on his left, pillowing her head on her backpack. Laura tucked herself under Logan’s arm like he was some kind of mother bear (he glared at Steve even as he wrapped his arm around Laura more securely, which only cemented the image in Steve’s head). Carol leaned back against the opposite wall and closed her eyes.

 

Steve stayed awake, staring into space. He replayed the day’s events over in his head and, glancing at America, decided that he was definitely a piece of shit.

 

He peeked under his makeshift bandage and watched as his skin knit itself together.

 

By morning, all that was left was slightly pinkish discoloration and a deep, haunting ache.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Go with Logan and Laura today,” Carol said to Steve.

 

America and Steve exchanged glances before America shrugged and patted him on the shoulder. She left the alley without another word.

 

Logan gave Steve the coldest stare he had maybe _ever_ faced. Laura, with much less tact, said, “Dead weight.”

 

Steve blinked, offended.

 

Carol didn’t bother saying anything else as she, too, left.

 

“I can stay here,” Steve said, trying to be fucking neutral, for once in his life.

 

“Like hell,” Logan growled. “You’re pulling your weight, even if it’s dead weight.”

 

Laura frowned.

 

“Come on.”

 

Steve trailed behind them as they strode from the alley. “What do you do?” Steve asked, jogging to catch up.

 

“Help people,” Laura said simply, as if it were obvious.

 

They dropped by an orphanage, and Laura immediately ran off to play with some other kids while Logan talked to the director.

 

“Got anything for me today, Chuck?” Logan asked gruffly.

 

The director rolled his eyes and wheeled his wheelchair around to a map of D.C. He pointed at an area. “Here.”

 

“I’ll be back soon, then,” Logan said, memorizing the area.

 

At the address, Steve and Logan watched the streets for a few minutes before Logan said, “Wait here.”

 

He returned fifteen minutes later with a kid on the verge of tears. “I—didn’t—mean—to—“ she hiccupped.

 

“I know, kid,” Logan said. He gave Steve a look.

 

They took the girl back to the orphanage, and the director (Charles, Steve found out) talked to her in a calm, gentle voice until she calmed down a little. When she dissolved into a silent thousand-yard stare, Logan asked, “Anything else?”

 

“Not today, no. Thank you, Logan,” Charles said.

 

“How’d he know where that kid was?” Steve asked absently as they went to collect Laura.

 

Logan shrugged. “I don’t ask questions.”

 

Steve rolled his eyes. “Okay.”

 

Laura left her friends with relatively minimal complaining, chatting about the game they’d been playing as Logan listened and provided rude but kind of funny commentary.

 

“Gabriel said I look like a toad.”

 

“Smart fuckin’ kid.”

 

Laura punched Logan in the arm, and Logan smothered a smile.

 

“What are we doing next?” Steve asked, kind of helplessly curious.

 

“See if they need help at the family shelter,” Logan said. He paused to cough into his fist.

 

The family shelter needed help posting flyers, so that’s what they did, even as Logan complained relentlessly. “Fuckin’ mindless work for people with no fuckin’ skills.”

 

“What’re your skills?” Laura asked.

 

Logan glared at her. “Shut the fuck up.”

 

When they were finished with the flyers, Steve leaned against their last pole. “Time for lunch,” Logan said, groaning as he stretched.

 

Laura pushed her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose and reached for Logan’s hand. Steve watched them swing their arms with each step as they walked, and he honestly couldn’t tell if he felt lonely or if he just wanted to run away from them.

 

“Where do you eat?” Steve asked after a moment.

 

“Oh, that’s right. You didn’t eat with us yesterday,” Logan said sarcastically, rolling his eyes, and Steve couldn’t decide if he hated the guy or loved him. “Soup kitchen.”

 

“Oh,” Steve said in surprise.

 

Logan shook his head as if to say _Unbelievable_.

 

They arrived at the soup kitchen, and Steve took in his surroundings. There was a big line for food and some tables crowded with people who couldn’t afford a meal. Steve spotted Carol in the masses and rubbed a hand across his jaw. He needed to shave.

 

Steve followed Logan and Laura into the line, absently scanning the volunteers for threats before he’d move on to everyone else, and—

 

Steve stopped in his tracks.

 

“Actually. I’m not hungry,” Steve declared.

 

Logan turned. “What.”

 

“What,” Laura mimicked.

 

Steve took a step back, eyes flicking between Logan’s irritated expression and the man serving some food—the same man who had opened Steve’s backpack and looked at his shield and—

 

“Yeah, sorry,” Steve said, heart thrumming. A high-pitched noise rang in his ears, and he thought it may be the sound of his own panic. “I’m just gonna wait outside.”

 

“What the fuck,” Logan said, but Steve had already run away.

 

Steve leaned against a nearby brick wall and scraped his knuckles up and down the rough surface. The blood blended in with the building.

 

America walked past him and turned. “The fuck are you doing?” she demanded.

 

“Not hungry,” Steve mumbled.

 

“Like hell. I did some research today, _chico_. Don’t healing factors require a lot of food for upkeep?”

 

Steve pulled a hand away from the wall and bit down on his knuckle. “No.”

 

America narrowed her eyes. “Liar. Come on.”

 

“No.”

 

She grabbed his arm and pulled. “ _Steve_.”

 

“I can’t,” he gasped, yanking his arm out of her grasp and trying to calm his breathing. “I just—if—if they find me—if they—they can’t—they’ll _hurt_ —“

 

“Hey, whoa,” America said, throwing her hands up. “Calm down.”

 

Steve shook his head wordlessly, because he couldn’t breathe with the sudden knowledge that Shield regarded people like America and Logan and Laura as _expendable_. That Brock Rumlow was out there, and that he thought even less of people like them. That _anyone_ who brought that life back to Steve right now was a danger to them.

 

They were better off without Steve. He was being fucking impractical.

 

“ _Hey_ ,” America snapped. She grabbed Steve’s hand and held it against her collarbone as it rose and fell with each of her breaths. “Breathe.”

 

Steve wasn’t sure how long it took to calm down, but he finally pulled his hand away and sagged against the wall. “Sorry.”

 

America rubbed her temples. “Wait here.”

 

A few minutes later, she returned with a cheap sandwich that she carefully tore in half. “Don’t,” Steve whispered. “You need that.”

 

“I can share,” America said wryly. She passed half to Steve.

 

Steve stared at her for a long moment before making himself eat it.

 

“I can’t do this for you forever. You’re going in there tomorrow.”

 

Steve’s throat was suddenly made of lead. “But—“

 

“Whatever is freaking you out? It won’t hurt you.”

 

 _It’ll hurt **you**_ , Steve wanted to say.

 

America rolled her eyes. “I’ll hold your fucking hand if you need me to, Rogers, but I’m not gonna fucking sit by while you live in fear.”

 

Steve swallowed roughly. “Fine.”

 

“Good. Now pull yourself together. Logan’s coming.”

 

Steve straightened, watching as Logan walked towards them in his unsteady, limping gait. “You good to go, bub?”

 

Steve rolled his shoulders. “Fine.”

 

America nodded at him before she walked away. Logan gave him an odd look. “Huh.”

 

“What?”

 

“Nothin’.”

 

Steve glared. “Obviously not.”

 

Logan shrugged. “She respects you. Fuckin’ weird, don’t you think?”

 

Steve blinked a few times, watching America disappear into the streets. “Yeah.”

 

Logan clapped him hard on the back. “Let’s go. Laura’s waiting by the train station.”

 

Steve pushed himself off the wall.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve tried rotating his shoulder only to be met with a spasm of pain that lanced down his arm. He grimaced, but he didn’t think he needed the makeshift sling anymore.

 

He figured he’d be going with Carol today because that just seemed like the logical progression of things, but America said, “Come on, _gringo_ ,” as Steve stood up.

 

Steve gave her a confused look.

 

America waved an impatient hand, so he followed.

 

“I have questions,” America said twenty minutes into their walk.

 

Steve tried not to give her too wary of a look. “Okay. Shoot.”

 

“Wikipedia said you don’t use guns.”

 

Steve gave a startled laugh. “Really?”

 

America frowned.

 

“I was the leader of an elite taskforce dedicated to destroying Nazis,” Steve said, helplessly amused. “Of course I fucking used guns.”

 

“Not just the shield?”

 

“I _preferred_ the shield, but supplemental material never hurts. The shield gives messier kills too.”

 

America side-eyed him. “Right.”

 

Steve shut up. “Sorry.”

 

“No, I asked.” America shuffled. “I know I usually do my own shit, but today, we should sort you out.”

 

“What?”

 

“Yeah. You need that. Plus, you came from a whole fucking different century.”

 

Steve scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“Chill. There’s probably some shit you just don’t know.”

 

That was true, Steve allowed. He rubbed his forehead. “Fine.”

 

America took him to the library first, and she showed him a map of D.C., pointing out all the notable locations, including public showers, the best shelters, places to get food, and places to steer clear of. “You got that?”

 

“Yeah,” Steve said.

 

“Good. ‘Cause it’s time for lunch, and you’re coming inside today. You need a full meal,” she said, whacking the arm of his injured shoulder.

 

A pit formed in Steve’s stomach. The man who knew who he was may not be there today. It was a possibility.

 

Steve shuffled behind America into the line for food, scanning the people around them.

 

He was there.

 

He and Steve would be face-to-face in two minutes.

 

Steve sucked in a breath. “I can’t do this.”

 

“You have to,” America said.

 

Steve mechanically grabbed a tray and hunched his shoulders. And then he was—

 

—facing the man who could bring everything back to him.

 

The man blinked a few times in recognition, then surprise. “Hi,” he finally said, mouth spreading into this fucking unfairly beautiful smile. “Soup?”

 

Steve nodded kind of dumbly. Why wasn’t he saying anything?

 

The man ladled the soup into the bowl on his tray, flashing another disarming smile before moving on to the next person.

 

“What,” Steve said when they exited the line, “just happened.”

 

“You got food,” America said cheerfully. “I don’t see the others. We’re kind of early. Let’s grab a table.”

 

Steve ate his soup and tasted none of it. America kept kicking him under the table, probably to make sure he didn’t have another fucking panic attack.

 

Carol sat next to America, and they talked just quietly enough that Steve didn’t bother focusing on their conversation over the rushing in his ears. Logan sat down on Carol’s other side, and Laura leaned against his arm, in between him and Steve.

 

Laura poked Steve on the arm. Steve looked down at her, and she pushed her sunglasses onto her head. She poked Steve again. Steve, not thinking, poked her back. Laura’s lips twitched into a brief smile, and she poked him again.

 

This may have gone on for longer than Steve anticipated because the next thing he knew, he heard the man’s voice say, “Hey.” Steve looked up sharply, and he was standing by their table with his hands in his pockets. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

 

Steve shot a look at America who just took a bite of her sandwich. Unhelpful. “Um.” He wasn’t going to go away. God. “Sure.” Steve stood up, heart hammering, belatedly noticing that the line for food was gone.

 

The man led him to an empty table. “I’m Sam Wilson,” he said, extending a hand.

 

Steve shook it after a beat of hesitation. “Hi,” he said warily.

 

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” Sam explained. “You seemed pretty out of sorts the last time I saw you.”

 

Steve suppressed a shiver at the thought of their last meeting. “I’m fine,” he said shortly.

 

Sam eyed Steve’s knuckles, scabbed and peeling from yesterday. “Right.”

 

Steve squared his shoulders. “What’s this really about?” he asked, lowering his voice. He made his tone hard and authoritative as he said, “Look, if you want to take me in, I don’t fucking care, but leave those four people out of your damn report.”

 

Sam looked at him for a long, critical moment. “I don’t work for whoever you think. I’m sure they’re very important and shit, but I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

 

Steve stared at him. “I don’t believe you.”

 

Sam shrugged. “Fair enough.” He and Steve locked eyes, and Steve was struck by the notion that Sam’s eyes were dark and perceptive in a way that made it dangerous to look at them for too long. Steve resisted the urge to look away. He’d stared down demons with no faces and skulls of red bone. He could face Sam. “But I know a fucked-up veteran when I see one, Steve.”

 

It was the use of his name coupled with the bluntness of the statement that made Steve look away. He ran a hand through his hair. “Have you told anyone?” he asked quietly.

 

“No,” Sam said just as softly. Steve hated himself for believing him. This wasn’t a world where it was safe to take someone’s word and hope for the best. “Only other person who saw is Natasha.”

 

Steve stared at his hands, clenched into fists on the tabletop. “Have you seen her since?”

 

“Once or twice,” Sam said slowly. Steve’s gaze flicked up and down. “She hasn’t been exceptionally forthcoming. You two know each other?”

 

“Not really,” Steve said, then shut his mouth.

 

“You both looked like you’d seen a ghost.”

 

“We fought together,” Steve said after a long, tense moment of silence.

 

“Okay,” Sam said, withdrawing from the topic. He even leaned back in his seat as he did so. “I get it, dude.”

 

Steve doubted it.

 

“Listen,” Sam said. “Just in case you ever feel like dragging yourself out of wherever you are now, I work at the VA downtown.” Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out a little card. He extended his hand.

 

Steve stared at it for a minute before reaching forward and taking the card. His fingers brushed against Sam’s as he did so, and he had to suppress a shudder.

 

People didn’t _touch_ Captain America.

 

“You’re a veteran?” Steve asked quietly, putting his finger on the sharp corner of the card and applying delicate pressure, light enough that the paper wouldn’t bend.

 

“Yep. Former pararescue.”

 

Steve blinked in surprise, looking up. “Wow.”

 

Sam shrugged, starting to gather his things. “Well. That’s that.”

 

“That’s that,” Steve echoed.

 

“You know where to find me,” Sam said, pointing at Steve.

 

“Sam,” Steve said as he started to walk away.

 

Sam turned around. “What’s up?”

 

Steve took a deep breath. “Thanks.” He didn’t trust Sam, but he could be a fucking polite person.

 

Sam smiled, and Steve was overwhelmed by how _nice_ the expression was. He leaned against the table, towards Steve, and Steve found himself leaning in too. “No problem. And Steve?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“One last word of advice?” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “You may want to paint over the shield. It looks like a damn target.”

 

Steve scowled. “Shut the fuck up,” he said, and it sounded a lot less intimidating and a lot more benignly exasperated than he wanted it to.

 

Sam laughed, clapping Steve on the shoulder. “I’ll see you around, man.”

 

Steve stared at Sam’s hand and didn’t move when he withdrew and walked away. He stayed still for a long time before standing up.

 

He should probably find some paint supplies.


	5. 04: PROPAGANDA-BRAINWASHED IDIOT SOLDIER

Steve finished scraping the color off his shield in the dead of night, in the alley adjacent to everyone else so that he wouldn’t wake them.

 

His conversation with Sam had been something of a reality check. He couldn’t keep hovering around his new friends all day. They all had a purpose, and Steve was much more of a hindrance than he was a help.

 

Plus, he had shit to do.

 

Brock Rumlow was still out there, and that was on Steve. He should’ve made sure that bastard was dead back on the oil rig, but now he had to finish the job. Make sure he didn’t hurt anybody else.

 

He’d been self-indulgent. It was time to return to his initial goal.

 

Come morning, Carol eyed him suspiciously. Steve assumed she was about to tell him to follow her for the day, so he opened his mouth. “I’m on my own now.”

 

Carol gave him a once-over with newly begrudgingly appreciative eyes. “Alright, then.”

 

Steve walked past the Triskelion to the location of that photo he’d found. He sat at an empty table and watched the streets, hoping for new information. Even though this trail had likely already gone cold, it was the only start he had.

 

He watched until something caught his eye.

 

In front of a post office building, a man and a woman stood chatting. They were well-hidden, but Steve picked out the weapons stashed underneath their clothes and gripped the edge of his table.

 

The woman passed the man a manila folder, and he tucked it into his coat.

 

Maybe it had nothing at all to do with Shield, but maybe it was a lead.

 

Either way, Steve had nothing left to lose.

 

He followed the man a block and a half away and figured he’d embrace his homeless stereotypes.

 

He shoved the man into an empty, dirty alley and flicked out a knife.

 

“Empty your fuckin’ pockets,” Steve said.

 

The man looked at him blankly. “Are you really _mugging_ me?”

 

“Pockets,” Steve snapped.

 

“Alright,” the guy said peaceably. He reached into his coat pocket for his fucking gun, like the predictable son of a bitch he was. “Let me just—“ he started to draw the gun, and Steve slashed his inner wrist.

 

The man cursed, dropping the gun. Steve caught it and slammed it into his head, and he crumpled.

 

Steve found the manila folder relatively easily before he wiped his fingerprints from the gun, dropped it on the guy’s chest, and walked a few paces away to examine the folder’s contents.

 

PROJECT: SCAPEGOAT

 

ASSIGNMENT: PILOT; HENDRIX, FRANCIS A.

 

HOURS: 0800 – 1600

 

DEBRIEFING: YOU AND YOUR TEAM WILL INVESTIGATE THE DISAPPEARANCE OF STRIKE TEAM A WITH PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO THE OIL RIG AT COORDINATES—

 

Something slammed into his chest, and Steve cursed as he was shoved into the wall. He moved to kick out his attacker’s legs, but she slammed her foot down on his _hard_ and—

 

“Romanoff?” Steve said.

 

“What are you doing here?” she whispered fiercely, face mere inches from his despite their height difference, her eyes intense and furious.

 

Steve narrowed his eyes. “Why the fuck would I tell _you_?”

 

Steve stilled as he felt the cold, sharp press of a blade against his jugular. Romanoff raised her eyebrows meaningfully.

 

Leaning forward so that the knife just barely broke skin, Steve bared his teeth and hissed, “I dare you.”

 

Romanoff studied him with an intelligent, calculating gaze. “I could hurt someone else.”

 

Steve glared. “Like _who_?” he snapped; a nail in the coffin.

 

“Your new friends. What’re their names?”

 

“Don’t,” Steve said quietly.

 

“Carol Danvers. Logan Howlett. Laura—“

 

“Shut up.”

 

Romanoff gave him a satisfied look. “What are you doing here, Rogers?”

 

Steve shivered at the reminder that she knew who he was. She knew his name. She knew what he had done—what he _could_ do. His truths laid out before him, scraped clean thoughtlessly, wordlessly with the Black Widow’s blade.

 

He decided that the truth was the least painful part of this situation.

 

“Looking for Brock Rumlow,” he said.

 

Romanoff narrowed her eyes. “He’s missing. Along with the rest of your team.”

 

“The rest of my team’s fucking dead.”

 

“What happened?” Romanoff asked.

 

Steve swallowed convulsively, and he felt another sticky drop of blood slide down his throat. “They’re dirty.”

 

“What?”

 

“We were assigned to bring down a rogue agent, but she—this woman was—I think she was innocent. I think she was trying to—to tell me that Shield was dirty. That—“ Steve took a deep breath. He’d never voiced these thoughts before. “My own team turned on me the second I hesitated killing her.”

 

Romanoff stared at him blankly, and she was way too good at her job to give anything away by her expression. She eased back the pressure on her knife, though. “I don’t believe you,” she said evenly.

 

Steve smiled, exhausted and small, but genuine. “Liar.”

 

Romanoff released him, and Steve rolled his shoulders to rid himself of the ache. “I’m looking for him too.”

 

Steve looked at her sharply. “What?”

 

“Sort of,” she added, cocking her head, catching Steve’s gaze. “When your team disappeared, the Director went a little bat-shit. Different C.O.s all over the fucking world are dispatching crews to look for you.” She shook her head, lips twitching. “Those fuckers.”

 

“You were one step ahead,” Steve realized.

 

Romanoff nodded shortly. “I was at the rig within an hour of your missed check-in. Found a bunch of bodies, but two were missing.”

 

“Wonder what happened to them,” Steve said dryly.

 

“On the way out, the rig spontaneously caught fire. What a freak accident. It just about erased all evidence.”

 

Steve grinned. “You’re kind of hilarious.”

 

Romanoff’s lips twitched. “No. Just clumsy,” she said, baring her teeth in a shark’s smile.

 

Despite himself, Steve found himself liking her. He didn’t trust her—not for one minute—but he liked her. “You report any of this to Shield?”

 

Romanoff shrugged languidly. Slowly, very carefully, she said, “I think it’s safe to say that Shield’s been compromised.”

 

Steve sagged against the wall of the narrow alley in relief. Someone fucking agreed with him. He wasn’t alone in this. “So, what?” he asked.

 

“So, I’m gathering evidence,” Romanoff said. “And that’s all you need to know. I’m taking them down.”

 

“Oh,” Steve said. He leaned down to pick up the folder and handed it to her. “This has some shit.”

 

“Project Scapegoat,” Romanoff read aloud. She looked up, raising an eyebrow. “That’s not damning at all.”

 

Steve shrugged, purposefully casual.

 

Romanoff’s eyes flicked over the contents of the folder for a moment before she closed it, putting it into the messenger’s bag over her shoulder. It was only then that Steve noticed her appearance. She looked like a goddamn hipster. Steve resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

 

She looked up at him, gaze critical like Steve was a sheet of battle plans. “You wanna help me?” she asked after a moment.

 

Steve blinked. “Excuse me?”

 

Romanoff lifted a shoulder. “We can hunt down Rumlow together. I have a lead or two.”

 

Steve stared at her, searching for some sort of trick that he knew he wouldn’t find. Romanoff let her shoulders fall back, and she inclined her head, exposing the line of her throat.

 

She wasn’t afraid of him.

 

Steve extended his hand. “Don’t make me regret this, Romanoff.”

 

Romanoff shook, but she didn’t release his hand. “Deal on one condition.”

 

Steve’s heart sank. “What’s that?”

 

Romanoff smiled a slow smile. “Call me Natasha.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“How’s your day going?” Laura asked at lunch, poking Steve in the cheek.

 

Steve looked at her in surprise and poked her on the nose. “Good. How’s yours?”

 

“Good. Gabriel called me a witch,” she said, sounding proud.

 

“Is Gabriel your best friend?”

 

Laura frowned and thought over it for a second. “Yes. But only because he shares his breakfast with me.”

 

“Smart kid.”

 

“He’s my second-best friend when he puts dirt in my hair.”

 

“Gross,” Steve laughed.

 

Logan glared at him, and Steve’s smile died on his lips. Laura poked him again. “Guess what?”

 

“What?”

 

Laura grinned. “Professor Xavier said I could sleep at the orphanage.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Are you gonna?”

 

Laura pursed her lips. “No. Daddy isn’t allowed.”

 

“That’s a shame.”

 

“I _know_.”

 

“Laura,” Logan said gruffly, looking pained. “You know you can—“

 

Laura swiveled, turning a fierce glare on him. “<I’m not leaving you.>”

 

“I don’t fuckin’ understand Spanish,” Logan whispered in frustration.

 

“You should learn,” Steve said quietly, turning to his soup.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“How was your day,” America said as they settled in for the night.

 

Steve looked over at her and stared for a long moment. “Fine.”

 

America nodded. “Good. Finding your purpose?”

 

Steve swallowed roughly. His purpose was, and always had been, _war_. “Yep.”

 

“Your shoulder.”

 

Steve rotated it. “Good.”

 

“Good.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve wondered briefly how he’d find Natasha again, but he’d only walked about four blocks in the vague direction of the Triskelion before she fell into step with him without looking at him.

 

“You ready?” Natasha asked, still not looking at him.

 

Steve flexed his fingers, the weight of his shield on his shoulders. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

 

Natasha smiled.

 

He followed her to an office building downtown, and they climbed two flights of stairs before Natasha unlocked a door and ushered Steve inside, flicking on a light.

 

Steve’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you _living_ here?” he asked.

 

Natasha glanced around the office—at the couch in the corner piled with blankets and the clothes shoved onto a chair. “That would be stupid of me,” she said. “I could go to a million other more secure safe houses.”

 

But that wasn’t a no.

 

Steve suddenly remembered that he had absolutely no grounds for judgment and waited as Natasha flipped open a laptop.

 

“Come here,” she said, and Steve walked over to lean over her shoulder, looking at the screen. “Rumlow’s been jumping from city-to-city all across North America, but he’s using D.C. as a base.”

 

“You been following him?”

 

“Yeah,” Natasha said. “We just came back from Mexico City.”

 

“What’s he doing?”

 

“Running a really intense drug ring, with some weapons dealing for high-up customers. Have you heard about the Crossbones Attacks in the news?”

 

“I haven’t had much access to television,” Steve said dryly.

 

Natasha shot him a wry smile. “He’s gotten some media attention, but they don’t know who he is.”

 

“I think he may know who I am,” Steve said quietly. He hadn’t meant for the thought to unearth itself, but the fear of discovery—of his identity being traded away like a new rifle—turned his skin inside out and made it _crawl_.

 

“Yeah, I’d expect so. He’s designed to uproot secrets like that.” Natasha clicked at something on her computer. An image sprang up of Rumlow, face horrifically scarred, peeking out of a window. “Anyway, he’s been operating across the street.”

 

Steve frowned, glancing at the window behind them. The building facing them was just as plain as the one they were in. “Why haven’t you taken him down yet?”

 

Natasha rolled her eyes. “It’s taken me a few days to come up with a plan and get the supplies.”

 

“And?” Steve pressed, because Natasha couldn’t have only known about the base for a few days.

 

She eyed him appreciatively, as if it had just dawned on her that Steve wasn’t an idiot. “This is a three-man job.”

 

Steve raised an eyebrow. “And you have no friends?”

 

Natasha snorted inelegantly. “Clint is getting here in two days.”

 

“And you needed _me_?” Steve asked, drawing the obvious conclusion.

 

Natasha straightened, turning to face him. “Look, I don’t have a lot of options. I don’t trust anyone else left in Shield—Clint doesn’t count because _I know him_. I was going to—“ she cut herself off. “I know for a fact that you’re not compromised, and you just happen to be willing and available.”

 

Steve looked across the street. “Are you sure we can’t do this with two people?”

 

Natasha sighed. “Let me go through the plan with you, and if you can see a way around it, we’ll go in today.”

 

Steve spent the next few hours listening intently as Natasha went through her plan. The markings of the fight sketched themselves out behind Steve’s eyelids, painting a world of blood on his blank shield and closure at his fingertips.

 

The plan required three people. Minimum.

 

Frustrated, Steve lifted his head from Natasha’s desk and stood. “I have to go get lunch,” he said. “I’ll be back in an hour, and we can go through it one more time.”

 

Natasha sat down on her pile of blankets. “Cool.”

 

He walked to the soup kitchen, frowning deeply. Steve only cared about Shield in the distant way an American voter cared about a British election. It would be troubling if it became a problem, but there were others who could stomp on it before then—Natasha was already raising a foot to stomp. But he was sad because that organization was Peggy’s legacy, and the last thing Steve wanted was for anything of hers to be stomped out. He tugged his jacket closer in the frigid air, thinking about the curve of her smile, sharp and smart and too proud for her own good. He missed her with a fierce, deep ache that twisted in his gut worse than a bullet wound.

 

He was still thinking about her when he entered the soup line.

 

“Hey,” Sam said as Steve moved along.

 

Steve blinked a few times, reorienting himself. “Oh. Hi, Sam.”

 

“How’s it going?” he asked, dumping some soup into a bowl for him.

 

“Uh. Good. Hi.”

 

Sam laughed, and Steve hated the way it warmed his fingers better than the heat of the soup. “Hi,” he said again, amused.

 

“You weren’t here yesterday,” Steve blurted out. _Stupid_.

 

Sam shook his head. “Nope.” He didn’t offer an explanation, gaze becoming distant and guarded, and Steve didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed.

 

“I—uh—scrubbed off the paint.”

 

“Good,” Sam said quietly, eyes softening marginally. “Stay out of damn trouble.”

 

Steve smiled wryly. “Can’t promise you that.”

 

As he walked down the line, he heard someone else say, “Holy _shit_ , Sam,” and Sam said, “Yeah, that’s my new friend.” Steve pressed his lips together, not sure how to react.

 

A friend?

 

Steve hadn’t had a friend since waking up. Steve didn’t need friends. What he needed was justice for his losses and a good, fast way to die.

 

He shook his head. He’d think about that when Brock Rumlow was in the ground.

 

Steve sat down next to America and listened as Laura spoke to her in Spanish, too fast for Steve to catch every word.

 

“Where’s Logan?” he asked absently.

 

“ _No sé_ ,” Laura said. “He disappears sometimes.”

 

Steve looked at her, frowning deeply. Laura jutted her chin out, but she shifted her weight uncomfortably.

 

He turned to look at Carol.

 

She was chewing on a limp piece of carrot very slowly. “He’ll be back by nightfall,” she said, but she didn’t sound as certain as she usually did.

 

A pit of unease unfurled in his chest, but he ignored it. If Logan wasn’t back by nightfall, he’d go looking.

 

“You wanna hang out with me for the rest of the day?” Carol asked Laura, and Steve blinked in surprise. He had never imagined Carol could use that kind of soft, friendly tone.

 

“Okay,” Laura said, and Carol leaned back to examine her soup again.

 

Steve looked over to find America watching him. He raised his eyebrows in question, and she looked away.

 

Steve pressed his knuckles against the table and wished for blood.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“You see what I mean?” Natasha said, lounging on her couch as Steve paced. She popped a chip into her mouth. “It’s gotta be three.”

 

“There’s no way around it,” Steve agreed reluctantly. “Why can’t Clint get here sooner?”

 

“He’s in jail,” Natasha said with a shrug.

 

Steve stopped pacing and stared at her.

 

She scowled. “What? The police like arresting him as a vigilante. He’s usually only in there for a week anyway.”

 

Steve let out a harsh breath. “O _kay_.”

 

“So. You know the plan.”

 

“I know the plan,” Steve agreed.

 

“Wanna watch some Parks and Rec?”

 

Steve blinked at her. “What?”

 

Natasha patted the spot next to her. “It’s a show. It’s really good. Come on. Sit down.”

 

Steve hesitated before he sat.

 

“You know,” Natasha said airily, clicking around on her laptop, “there are some public showers downtown.”

 

Steve scooted to the opposite end of the couch, embarrassed. “Oh.”

 

Natasha rolled her eyes and scooted to the middle of the couch. “Don’t flatter yourself. I smell worse after half a mission.”

 

It was a lie, but it was a kind lie. Steve hadn’t paused to examine his hygiene because he knew that if he did, he’d stand still and never move again. He sat stiffly as Natasha clicked on a video.

 

They watched eight episodes before Steve fell asleep.

 

He woke up with a jerk and a thin gasp, drawing in his limbs in the unfamiliar environment. Natasha hit her spacebar and looked at him as Steve accounted for himself. He touched his face, felt his nose, his eyes, his lips. He shuddered, trying to figure out where and when he was.

 

When he’d mostly calmed down, Natasha pressed the spacebar, and the show continued to play.

 

They sat in the silent dark while Steve geared up the courage to leave.

 

And in the end, it was as simple as saying, “I’ve gotta go,” and not looking back.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Carol crossed her arms and stared at the mouth of the alley. She tapped her foot to a beat. “I’m going to find Logan.”

 

“Let me come,” Steve said.

 

“No,” Carol said as America said, “Eyyyy, _noche de las chicas_.” Laura gave her a fist-bump.

 

Carol stared at America, looking betrayed. America arched an eyebrow. “Take him.”

 

“Fine,” Carol sighed.

 

Steve felt like he’d won a minor battle as he followed Carol’s brisk footsteps.

 

“Where do you think he is?” Steve asked, hurrying to fall into step with her.

 

“I know where he is,” she said darkly.

 

Steve resisted the profound urge to glare at her, knowing she’d just glare right back. “Please?”

 

Carol glanced at him and sighed, and Steve saw her composed expression crack into a mirror of his own—exhaustion lined every inch of her face, and her eyes were deeply resigned, and Steve felt a yank of melancholy that made him look away. “He’s at this bar,” Carol said quietly. “It’s a few blocks that way.”

 

Steve’s heart sank.

 

As they neared their destination, it started to snow, the flakes thick and heavy. This would stick much more readily than the previous snowfall, and Steve found it within himself to dread it. He imagined his fingers turning blue, then black, and then being cut off in a claustrophobic shelter as he faded in and out of consciousness. He put his hands in his pockets.

 

Carol stepped into the bar with the fury that Steve had come to expect from her—quiet and controlled, but no less terrifying.

 

Logan was slumped against a table in the back corner. Carol marched straight towards him.

 

She grabbed the drink out of his hand.

 

“What the _fuck_ , Danvers,” Logan mumbled.

 

“What the _fuck_ , Howlett?” Carol returned, much more forcefully.

 

“Was jus’ havin’ one.”

 

Carol’s eyes blazed with anger. “Don’t lie to me,” she said lowly.

 

Logan held up a finger. “Jus’ one.”

 

She slammed the glass onto the table, and it shattered.

 

“Hey!” the bartender called. “Careful.”

 

“Sorry,” Steve said hastily as Carol and Logan glared at each other. The bartender waved him off.

 

“You left your daughter _alone_ in this city,” Carol hissed.

 

Logan’s eyes flashed with grief. “She’s better off without me,” he growled.

 

“ _Logan._ ”

 

“Look at me,” he said, slumping back in his chair. “I’m fuckin’ _dying_. And she—she won’t. Leave me.”

 

“She’s family,” Carol snapped. “Of course she won’t.”

 

“She should.” Logan rubbed his hands across his face. “Look at me,” he said again. “I’m too fucked up for a kid. I’m too… I’m fucked up.”

 

“She’s survived a year, hasn’t she?”

 

“Shouldn’t have to—to _survive_ ,” Logan spat bitterly. “She should get to _live_.”

 

Carol closed her eyes tight. “Just—“

 

“Leave me ‘lone.”

 

Carol took a deep, measured breath, and Steve hesitantly tapped her on the shoulder. She looked at him in surprise, as if only just remembering that he was here. “Can I?”

 

“Fine.”

 

Steve pulled out a chair and sat in front of Logan. He grabbed one of the half-empty glasses and downed it in one gulp.

 

Logan stared at him. “Right _now_?”

 

Steve shrugged, grabbing the bottle that Logan had appropriated for his table and topping off two glasses. He slid one to Logan.

 

Logan’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead.

 

“Steve—“ Carol said.

 

Steve shook his head, not breaking eye contact with Logan. “We’re gonna talk about our feelings like _men_.” He downed his drink, and, _thank god_ , Logan followed suit.

 

“Why are you doing this?” Steve asked, filling up their glasses again.

 

“Nice try, motherfucker. An eye for an eye. You first.”

 

Steve’s fingers tightened around the bottle as he tried to hide his panic. He swallowed with some difficulty. “What d’you wanna know?”

 

Logan leaned forward. “What happened to your fuckin’ shoulder?”

 

“Got shot,” Steve said. Logan drank, and he followed. Shit, this stuff tasted awful. With his mostly empty stomach, Steve may actually get a little light-headed.

 

“I… I _knew_ it.”

 

“Now you,” Steve said. “Why’re you here?”

 

Logan stared at his glass as Steve filled it up again. “Hurts,” he said shortly.

 

“What?”

 

“That’s a different question.”

 

Steve let out a breath and took a drink. “Fine.”

 

“Who died that has you so fucked up?”

 

“Everyone,” Steve whispered.

 

Logan nodded, and Steve was dully surprised to note a glimmer of respect in his eyes. “Gotchu.”

 

“What hurts?” Steve asked as they downed their next drink.

 

Logan blinked sluggishly. It was coming. “Body. Brain.”

 

Another drink.

 

“Why do you fuck up your knuckles?” Logan slurred, nearly incoherent.

 

“’Cause I can feel it,” Steve said, and he hated himself.

 

“Somebody get this guy a fuckin’ Xanax,” he said, and then laughed, and then coughed.

 

Another drink.

 

“What’s holding you back from Laura?”

 

Logan stared at him blankly for a long moment. He closed his eyes, reaching up a shaking hand to rub his forehead. “Don’t want her to be like me,” he finally muttered. He clenched his hand around his glass. He started to shake his head and didn’t stop.

 

Steve glanced back at Carol, who watched the scene with mild alarm. “Help me,” he said. He stood and walked over to Logan, and Carol stepped over to his other side.

 

Steve grabbed his arm, and Logan roughly growled, “Getoffme,” but he was too drunk to do much more than protest as Carol and Steve hoisted him up and dragged him outside.

 

Logan’s head lolled down to his chest, and he passed out.

 

“Thanks,” Carol said shortly after a minute, not looking at him.

 

Steve looked at her. “No problem.”

 

“I got too angry,” she said quietly. “I won’t watch him _leave_ Laura because he’s—he’s _insecure_.”

 

“I know,” Steve said and wondered, for the millionth time, what Carol did during the day. “We won’t let it happen, but.” Steve hesitated. He didn’t know if Carol had the same type of trauma, but maybe he’d just make the assumption. “We all have bad days.”

 

Carol scoffed. “Understatement,” she said with a morbid smile, and Steve realized that they were having a real conversation.

 

He almost tripped over his next step.

 

“Why aren’t you drunk?” Carol asked after a few steps, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

 

“I can’t get drunk,” Steve said, too tired to care if he was revealing too much.

 

“Huh,” Carol said slowly. She eyed him with calculating eyes. “It takes Logan a while. He’s a mutant.”

 

Steve almost dropped Logan before he cursed and righted his grip. “What?”

 

“Must’ve been drinking all damn day.”

 

“Oh,” Steve said awkwardly.

 

Carol smiled. “Don’t tell him I told you. He’d kill me.”

 

Was she extending some sort of olive branch? That was kind of what it felt like. Steve tentatively grabbed it. “You’d kill me first.”

 

“Exactly.”

 

It was an odd peace, but it was a peace that Steve was happy with. He relaxed marginally, kicking some snow to ensure that their tracks would be semi-obscured. “What do you do during the day?” he asked, figuring it was now or never.

 

Carol looked out at the street, her profile severe and beautiful against the cold night. “I help women.”

 

“Any woman?”

 

“All women.”

 

Steve nodded. “Are you happy with yourself?”

 

Carol looked surprised by the question. “You know what?”

 

“What?”

 

She looked at him, once again the imposing figure Steve recognized, but he could see the layers of exhaustion and genuine capacity for empathy underneath it all. “Most days, I am.”

 

Steve was the first to look away.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve woke up to Logan elbowing him hard in the stomach.

 

“Mother _fucking_ fucker,” Logan grunted.

 

He’d slumped onto Steve when they’d gotten to the alley last night, and Carol had shrugged at him before sliding into her spot, leaving Steve to be aggressively cuddled against his will. “Shhh,” Steve said.

 

“Fuck you.”

 

“Hangover?” Steve asked as he sat up.

 

Logan glared at him. “Like I’d tell you.”

 

Steve rubbed his eyes.

 

“Daddy?” Laura said groggily, propping herself up on her elbow.

 

All of Logan’s attention zeroed in on his daughter. “Laura?”

 

She smiled sleepily. “You came back.”

 

Logan looked at her helplessly. “’Course I did. C’mere, kid.”

 

“No,” Laura said, turning over on her side so that her back was to them.

 

Steve shot Logan a look, but he wouldn’t look at him.

 

Two minutes later, Laura shuffled over to Logan and curled into his side. “<I always think you’re going to leave forever.>”

 

Logan clearly didn’t understand, but he looked down at her and stroked a hand through her hair gently, and that was the right thing to do. Laura sighed contentedly.

 

Steve looked up to see Carol tiredly watching them too. She caught his gaze, and they nodded at each other.

 

America, pretending to still be asleep, smiled.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve was walking a zig-zagging, confusing path to Natasha’s hideout when a body crashed into him, and he smacked against a wall with the force.

 

Steve whirled around, ready to _kill_ , but—

 

“Frank Castle?”

 

Castle pushed off of him, eyes wide. “Run,” he said.

 

Steve stared. “What?”

 

“Run!” Castle snapped, turning on heel and barreling into the streets.

 

Steve barely had a moment to process this when a group of men sprinted around the corner, holding big guns.

 

“Oh, shit,” Steve hissed. He frantically scrambled to find some cover so that he could draw a weapon, but then he noticed his surroundings.

 

Fuck. Shit. There were civilians _everywhere_. Steve glanced around at the people and saw posters and— _fuck_. They were in the goddamn middle of a goddamn _protest_.

 

Steve bolted into the crowd, shoving people aside, and found Castle within a few minutes, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. “You can’t fucking hide in plain sight. There are civilians everywhere.”

 

“I know,” Castle snapped, trying to squirm his way out of Steve’s too-tight grip. “I’m trying to _get away_.”

 

Steve narrowed his eyes. “Just fight them!”

 

“They have way more fucking guns than I do!”

 

“You can’t _endanger_ these people, Castle,” Steve growled.

 

“Not on my life, I won’t,” Castle said darkly, eyes flashing with something murderous—grief, maybe. “We have to draw them away, though.”

 

“We?”

 

“You owe me, remember?” Castle said, finally pushing out of Steve’s hold.

 

Steve rubbed his forehead. “I _don’t_ , but—“

 

“Less talk,” Castle said. He raised his arm and fired his gun three times, and the protestors immediately started to _freak out_ and scramble to leave the area. Steve blinked, and Castle was already starting to move through the crowd again.

 

“Wait. What’s your plan?” Steve shouted, following after him, glancing behind to see the men with guns looking over the chaos of the protest with vengeance in their eyes. _Jesus, what did this motherfucker **do**?_ Steve wondered.

 

Castle broke free of the protest and swung up to grab the run of a ladder. “Get the higher ground,” he called down. “Cover me.”

 

“Dammit,” Steve hissed, hastily drawing his gun.

 

Predictably, one of the men saw Castle climbing and shouted, pointing in his direction. He aimed his rifle, and Steve jumped onto a dumpster so that he’d have the angle to shoot him and avoid the civilians.

 

The shot rang out before the man managed to squeeze the trigger, and his arm dropped like lead as the bullet hit.

 

Maybe it was a panic response, but the man squeezed his trigger as the gun started to fall.

 

Screams rang out from the already-dispersing protest, and Steve prayed to a God he wasn’t sure he believed in that nobody was hurt. He had the attention of the men after Castle, though, and half of them combed through the scrambling crowd towards him.

 

Steve yanked open his backpack and pulled out his shield—a blank, metallic gray that gleamed dully in the poor light.

 

It was cold.

 

Bullets shattered against vibranium, and Steve jumped off the dumpster and charged the men out for him.

 

He slammed his shield into the first one’s neck, and he went down with a heavy, dead thud. The second was more cautious, and it took Steve a minute to disable him by slamming the shield into his wrists, shattering the bones, and then knocking him unconscious with a knock to the head. The fourth had time to shoot, and he hit Steve in the thigh with a burning pain that would ache for days. Steve threw his shield, and it hit the man’s throat with a sickening crunch. The fifthclu man started to back away, eyes flicking between his companions and Steve when there was the sound of gunfire being exchanged.

 

Steve spared a second to note that Castle was picking off those who remained with a rifle that Steve somehow hadn’t noticed, and by the time he looked back at his final adversary, he’d grabbed a hastily fleeing protestor and pressed the gun to his head.

 

“Move and I shoot,” the man said in a hoarse Irish accent.

 

Steve didn’t move. There was a bang, and the man’s head snapped backwards, blood and brains exploding out. He crumpled, his heavy weight taking his hostage with him, and Steve didn’t turn around to acknowledge Castle as he pulled the hostage free.

 

“Are you okay?” he demanded urgently.

 

The hostage stared at him, mutely opening and closing his mouth.

 

“Hospital,” Steve decided.

 

He turned. Castle was climbing down from the building. “We gotta run,” he said to Steve. “Police. News.”

 

“Do you have a phone?” Steve demanded.

 

Castle frowned.

 

“Call 911. This guy’s in shock.”

 

Steve’s ringing ears started to pick up sirens coming closer.

 

Castle grabbed Steve’s shoulder. “They’re coming. If you wanna get arrested, stick around.”

 

Steve hesitated. He looked around at the ruins of the attack.

 

The hostage. The eight bodies.

 

A woman clutching her leg and a small cluster of civilians around her. Blood pooled beneath her.

 

Steve started to back away, hating himself deeply.

 

Castle broke into a run, and he followed.

 

When they sagged against a park bench several miles away, Steve stared blankly at Castle and said, “Who were they.”

 

He hadn’t even asked who he was fighting.

 

He hadn’t even _asked_.

 

A perfect soldier.

 

“Irish mob,” Castle said breathlessly. “Killed my family. I killed theirs.”

 

Steve sank to sit down. “Casualties,” he said in a monotone.

 

Castle’s jaw worked, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Yeah.”

 

The injured civilians were _alive_ , at least. But—

 

But.

 

“It shouldn’t be this way,” Steve said, almost too quietly to hear.

 

Everything about this was fucked to hell. Steve’s unquestioning dive into the fight. The murders on his hands now. Those hurt in the crossfire.

 

It occurred to Steve that he may have a much bigger problem than he’d initially assumed.

 

He’d embraced this fight with open arms. He hadn’t even questioned it. He’d _followed_ like some kind of goddamn propaganda-brainwashed idiot soldier because he’d _wanted to_.

 

Steve stood up in a rush, ears ringing. “I gotta go,” he said.

 

Castle stared at him. There had been a light in his eyes before the fight—it had been there back in the shelter too. Maybe it was anger, and maybe it was fear, but it had faded now to something flat and dead. “Yeah,” he said roughly, looking down at the ground. He clenched his fist to stop it from shaking.

 

Steve turned on heel and walked away.

 

He’d always _wanted_ to fight, but this was something different. This was something deep in his psyche that was disgusting and fucked up and—and—and he was wired all wrong. Only deeply disturbed men craved action and violence and blood on their knuckles.

 

Steve braced himself against the wall of a brick building and hit it. His knuckles split, and he dislocated his index and middle fingers with a horrific crack. The pain all rushed into him at once, and he took all the weight off his left leg, and he cradled his hand against his chest, and then he hit the wall again, and the bone of his index finger _crunched_.

 

Steve pressed his uninjured hand to his face and wiped away the hot tears that he hadn’t even been aware of. Christ.

 

 _I want to die_ , Steve suddenly remembered with a fierce passion. _I want to shoot myself in the fucking head._

 

And why not? The only thing left for him was killing Brock Rumlow, and Natasha clearly already had that under control. She could replace him within the day.

 

There was _nothing_ left. He was dead weight to America and Logan and Laura, worse to Carol, and Bucky was dead and Gabe was dead and Jim was dead and Dugan and Falsworth and Dernier and Phillips and his mom were dead and Peggy couldn’t remember him.

 

Steve gasped, pressing his forehead against the brick.

 

They were dead.

 

They were all _dead_.

 

Peggy was inaccessible.

 

They were—all of them—they were—

 

“Gone,” Steve choked out.

 

He threw up in a nearby trash can, not much coming up but a thin, nasty stream of bile. He coughed and sputtered and hated himself _hated hated **hated**_ until he caught his breath and made his way back to leaning against the wall while people passed and studiously ignored him. Ignored the crazy homeless man who fantasized about killing himself.

 

Steve swung his backpack around and unzipped it with a trembling hand. His gun. He’d need his gun.

 

He reached inside with his good hand, and his fingers brushed against the firm edge of a thick square of paper.

 

Steve froze.

 

The card that Sam had given him was slightly curved but otherwise intact.

 

It had the address of the VA on it.

 

Steve stared.

 

And stared.

 

He clutched his jacket tight around himself and noticed that it had started to snow again.

 

Steve imagined lying down in the snow until it covered him and waiting for hypothermia as his serum rapidly worked to heal him, despite everything. He imagined grabbing his gun and shooting all of his fingers off because the cold didn’t do it.

 

He stared at the card.

 

Steve’s hand was swollen and on fire, and his thigh screamed with each limping step when he reached the VA, unsure if it was of his own volition.

 

He reached the VA and leaned against the wall and slid down to sit.

 

His fingers burned with the cold.

 

In his broken hand, he clutched the card. In his good one, the strap of his backpack, where he could reach the gun.

 

Steve wasn’t sure how long he sat there, but after a while, it was getting dark, and he blinked and looked up and Sam was standing in front of him.

 

When he saw that he had Steve’s attention, he half-smiled, half-grimaced. “You look like shit,” he said quietly.

 

Steve bowed his head and hissed in a pained breath, closing his eyes tight. His past laid out behind him, in front of him, the expanse of it scarred with devastation that inevitably flowed in his wake. He had no future. He had no _future. He had no future_.

 

Sam sat down next to him after a moment, and Steve didn’t know what to do. He felt the warmth of Sam’s body through the icy stillness of the evening—it was still and cold like death was still and cold, and Steve thought numbly that it would be a good day to die. It would be good.

 

He let go of his backpack and grabbed Sam’s hand, and he was shocked at himself for it—for the breath of eternity it took for Sam to turn his hand and lace their fingers together—and Steve didn’t know him, but he seemed like he fucking _cared_ and he was miraculously _here_ and—

 

He stared down at their hands while Sam looked straight ahead, his jaw tense with apprehension.

 

“You don’t know me,” Steve said, surprised to hear how hoarse his voice was.

 

Sam finally looked towards him, and his eyes were sad. “You’re a veteran.”

 

But he was _so much worse_ than a veteran. How could anyone _not_ see it?

 

Sam’s thumb ran over the back of his hand in a light stroke, and Steve fucking shuddered. “Do you know why I’m here,” he asked, and his voice felt as blank and empty as his chest.

 

Sam offered a very careful, neutral shrug.

 

Steve looked at his fucked hand and whispered, “I know no future.”

 

Sam barely paused at that. There was snow on his shoulders. There was weight. There was a world on Sam’s shoulders, and Steve tried to smother his sharp intake of breath because _no one deserved a world on their shoulders_.

  


 

Sam caught his eye and held it for a long moment before he said, “I didn’t either.”

 

They sat there and it snowed and Steve only imagined death by hypothermia once as he felt the warmth of Sam’s hand in his own.


	6. 05: COPY-CAT SUPERHERO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a relatively graphic (as in violent) image towards the end of the chapter.

Sam was quiet as he essentially dragged Steve into his house.

 

Steve’s head felt like it was buzzing lowly—perhaps a panic response to an unknown situation. He stood on the balls of his feet in Sam’s kitchen and looked around.

 

It was a nice house.

 

Sam didn’t look at him as he headed for a door. Opening it, he grabbed a towel and turned back to Steve. His hand closed around Steve’s bicep, and he dragged him to another door.

 

“Shower,” Sam said, tone booking no room for argument.

 

Steve tried anyway. “I—“

 

“Medical attention would be useless if you don’t get clean,” Sam said firmly, pushing Steve into the bathroom. “ _Shower_.”

 

Steve stood in the bathroom for a moment, noticing that he was fucking trembling. Fuck that. He wasn’t even hurt that badly.

 

He peeled off his jeans with a wince, dried blood unsticking from the skin on his thigh and not doing any favors for his bullet wound. He took off his jacket and carefully folded it. Then his shirt.

 

The shower was… The water turned brown and rusty red as it hit him. Steve used mostly his good hand to wash, but he had to use his injured hand at times, and it hurt like a motherfucker.

 

When he was satisfied, he stepped out of the shower and slowly toweled himself off. He reached for his clothes, but in their place, he found a pair of sweatpants, a long-sleeved shirt that said AIR FORCE, and some boxers.

 

Steve cursed under his breath and put on the clothes.

 

Sam was sitting at the kitchen table, looking intently at his phone. There was a first aid kit ready right next to him.

 

Steve hovered at the edge of the room and finally said, “My clothes—“

 

“I threw them into the laundry, dude,” Sam said, looking up, eyes unreadable.

 

“Oh.”

 

Sam kicked out the seat next to him. “Sit. Take off the pants.”

 

Steve hesitated, but he figured he literally had nothing better to do. He spared a thought for Natasha, in that cramped office across the street from Brock Rumlow, before kicking off the sweatpants and sitting down.

 

Sam leaned forward to inspect the bullet wound. “Oh, it’s still _in_ there,” he said, whistling.

 

Steve watched as Sam cleaned the wound a little bit more. He extracted the bullet with some sort of tool that vaguely resembled tweezers. Steve bit his tongue hard to keep from reacting and tasted blood. Sam was quick and efficient in dressing the wound from then on, and Steve blinked, and he was sitting on a log in front of Morita, Bucky’s hand clamped over his mouth and a piece of leather clenched in his teeth to keep from making noise as Morita yanked a bullet out of his ribcage, and Morita was laughing breathlessly as he held up the bloody piece of shit, and Steve was blinking away tears as Bucky took away his hand and—

 

“You can put the pants back on,” Sam said dryly.

 

Steve swallowed around gravel in his throat and did as told.

 

“Let me see your hand.”

 

Steve put it on the table and tried not to look at it. What a _fucking_ mess. A goddamn fucking mess.

 

Sam’s grip was gentle but firm as he inspected the damage. After a minute, he quickly popped the middle and index fingers back into place, and Steve stared passively as fire shot up and down his arm, the urge to cry powerful but ignored.

 

Sam felt along his index finger and shook his head a few times. “Not much I can do for this.”

 

“It’ll heal,” Steve said quietly.

 

Sam still put the finger in a splint and wrapped some gauze around it, his middle finger, and his ring finger for support or some shit.

 

Sam felt along the rest of his hand to see if anything was damaged. “Your wrist may be sprained, but if it is, it’s real minor.”

 

“Okay,” Steve said.

 

Sam withdrew, sitting back in his seat. Steve tensed, bracing himself for an interrogation. _What happened? Do you have a death wish? Why do you want yourself dead? Who are you?_ But Sam just rubbed a hand over his face and said, “Want something to drink?”

 

Steve blinked in surprise. Shrugged.

 

Sam stood and made his way over to the fridge. “Well, I’m having some orange juice. And I’m making dinner soon.”

 

“Okay,” Steve said, not sure why he was here still. He hunched his shoulders. He didn’t belong here.

 

Sam poured himself some orange juice and leaned against the counter, watching Steve as he sipped from it slowly. Steve tried to look as innocuous as possible.

 

“Why are you helping me?” Steve finally asked. He stared at the table.

 

“You’re a veteran,” Sam said.

 

But. Steve shook his head, hating himself and everything he had come to stand for. “I’m so much worse than that.”

 

Sam put his glass down and walked back over to Steve. Instead of sitting in his seat, he crouched down to a squat next to him and grabbed his good hand. “Dude,” he said firmly, and Steve looked down at him—at his kind, warm eyes that threatened to thaw his frostbitten limbs, at his pursed lips that _begged_ attention, at the taunting, cruel promise of a _future_. “You think you’re the only one who wakes up in the morning and wishes he was dead?”

 

Steve went very still, and Sam squeezed his hand before standing, walking over to finish off his orange juice and start pulling shit out of the fridge.

 

Steve sat on his chair, trying very hard to show no indication that the axis of the Earth had shifted. He closed his eyes, pressing three knuckles against his forehead to _remember himself_ , but Sam’s words unfurled around him and pressed against him like a blanket.

 

Steve must’ve lost some time, because he blinked and Sam way laying down two plates of spaghetti on the table. He stared at Steve for a moment. His gaze was calculating. Steve bowed his head to try to get away from it, but Sam put a hand on his shoulder and gently tilted his head upwards with the other. “Hey,” he said, voice quieter and softer than Steve would ever deserve. Steve shuddered and looked up.

 

Sam had all of his fingers. They weren’t black from hypothermia.

 

“Eat your fucking pasta.”

 

Steve choked on a shocked little laugh, and Sam grinned in response, sitting back down.

 

“This is good,” Steve said after a pause.

 

“Thanks.”

 

Steve couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten something this substantial. It was _good_.

 

“You know,” Sam began cautiously, and Steve could see the hesitation in his eyes, “you can stay here the night—if you want.”

 

Steve considered it for a moment. Maybe more than a moment. But he shook his head slowly. “There’s somewhere I’ve gotta be.”

 

(He was sure that they wouldn’t miss him if he didn’t come to the alley, but it would feel like a betrayal nonetheless.)

 

Sam smiled, the expression small and somewhat melancholy but genuine. “Okay. Well. My door’s always open. And if I’m not here, you can probably use the window.”

 

Steve snorted in amusement despite himself.

 

“Laundry should be done in like two hours,” Sam said after they’d cleared their places and washed the spaghetti sauce off their plates (Sam had bumped their shoulders together as they stood at the sink, and Steve’s arm was still tingling). “We could watch a movie.”

 

Steve frowned. “Sure.” He glanced at the window. It was getting dark. Whatever.

 

“You like action movies?” Sam asked, walking over to his couch.

 

Steve shrugged helplessly.

 

“I’m putting on _Die Hard_ ,” he said. “If it starts bothering you, just let me know.”

 

Steve sat next to Sam tentatively as he put on the movie. It was good, he thought. Steve wondered if he’d be able to fight barefoot on a floor of broken glass and almost laughed. He’d had worse.

 

When all was said and done, Sam handed him back his clothes, and Steve changed. “I’m mostly offended that you made me wear an Air Force shirt,” he said dryly.

 

Sam laughed. “Oh, that’s how it is?”

 

Steve felt his face pull into a smile before he could stop himself. “That’s how it is.”

 

“Army brat,” Sam coughed.

 

There was a moment. Before Steve walked outside into the cold wind that ripped through him like Peggy ripped paper napkins when she was nervous. Sam grabbed the wrist of Steve’s injured hand and studied his work while Steve studied Sam—the way his eyelashes fanned out onto his cheeks, the way his muscles shifted ever so slightly as he turned Steve’s wrist. Steve swallowed roughly, and Sam looked up so that they locked eyes.

 

Sam said, “Don’t do this again.”

 

Steve’s lips quirked into the sad approximation of a humorless smile. “No promises.”

 

Sam mirrored the expression before releasing him.

 

And then Steve left. Into the napkin-tearing wind.

 

 

* * *

 

 

America was the only one awake when he returned to the alley.

 

“Where’ve you been?” she asked. Her eyes zeroed in on his hand. “What happened to you?”

 

Steve sat down next to her in a huff. “Stuff.”

 

America let out an exasperated breath and shivered.

 

Steve glanced at her, frowning. “Cold?”

 

“No,” she lied.

 

Steve frowned some more and started to take off his jacket.

 

“ _Don’t_ ,” she warned lowly. Her teeth were chattering, though.

 

“I’m pretty warm,” Steve said. It was a thought he didn’t often like to think. America narrowed her eyes. “Side effect of the—serum.”

 

She put a hand on his arm. “Oh.” Looking up at him suspiciously, she withdrew her hand. “So?”

 

“I’m not allergic to people,” Steve said uncomfortably.

 

America screwed up her face. “Logan may have enjoyed your cuddle-fest, but I’m not buying it.”

 

“Suit yourself,” Steve said, idly picking at the tape around his fingers.

 

“Don’t do that,” America said, slumping down a little bit. Steve put his hands down.

 

An hour later, and she finally dozed off. After a while, she slumped against his shoulder, and Steve tried really really hard not to feel amazingly fond about it.

 

He woke up when she sat up, scowling. “Don’t do that again.”

 

“I didn’t do anything,” Steve said.

 

America glared.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Where were you yesterday?” Natasha asked as she yanked Steve into her office.

 

“In trouble,” Steve said.

 

Natasha examined his hand for a moment before dropping it. Her expression was grim. “They moved.”

 

Steve blinked. “ _What_?”

 

“They _moved_.”

 

“Do you know where?” Steve demanded, looking across the street. He could not lose this. This was all he had.

 

“I have a few ideas,” she said stiffly.

 

Steve sat down. “Fuck.”

 

Natasha gave him a sympathetic look. “This isn’t over.”

 

At that moment, the door opened, and Steve reached for a weapon before recognizing Clint Barton. He looked incredibly worse-for-wear, dark bruises lining his face, knuckles split, hair sticking up, shirt spattered with blood. It was a look that Steve could relate to.

 

“Hey,” he said.

 

“You remember Clint,” Natasha said.

 

“Yeah,” Steve said.

 

“You remember the copy-cat superhero.”

 

“Yep,” Clint said. He was holding two cups of coffee, and he handed one to Natasha, who took a sip without blinking.

 

“Clint owns a building. In Brooklyn,” Natasha said, voice carefully casual.

 

Steve stared at her.

 

She looked Steve dead in the eye. “Maybe as a favor to a friend, he’d even rent out a room for free. Funny, right?”

 

“Hilarious,” Steve deadpanned.

 

Clint shrugged, clearly not paying the exchange very much attention. “So, where is that little bastard?”

 

Natasha broke eye contact to look at Clint. “Either somewhere else in D.C. or Vienna.”

 

Clint nodded. “Naturally.” He took off the lid of his coffee to look inside and frowned. “Aw, coffee, no.”

 

“Empty?” Natasha asked.

 

Clint pouted.

 

She offered him her cup. Clint hesitated before shaking his head.

 

Natasha rolled her eyes, taking a sip.

 

“We goin’ to Vienna then?” Clint asked, sitting on the arm of the couch farthest from Steve.

 

“We _could_ ,” Natasha said.

 

Steve suddenly felt very removed from the whole situation. He couldn’t go to Vienna even if it was the only way to get to Brock Rumlow. He felt very, very tired. And old.

 

Clint hummed, swinging his legs a little bit. “I’ve always hated that guy,” he mused. He glanced between Natasha and Steve. “Do you think all the assholes in Shield are dirty? ‘Cause in that case, we should totally check out Sitwell.”

 

Natasha rolled her eyes, patting him on the head. “We can’t investigate everyone we don’t like.”

 

“Not with that attitude.”

 

Steve smothered a smile because it _wasn’t_ funny. It _wasn’t_.

 

Clint looked over at Steve. “I vote we chill for like five minutes before we make a decision.”

 

“Clint,” Natasha said.

 

“Maybe take a nap.”

 

“Clint, no.”

 

“A nice depression nap.”

 

“ _Clint_.”

 

“Steve feels me.”

 

Steve blinked. “Don’t bring me into this.”

 

Clint frowned. “Aw, bro.”

 

“I think we should check out D.C. first,” Steve said. “Eliminate it as a possibility before wasting resources travelling.”

 

Natasha nodded. “That’s what I was thinking.”

 

“Cool. Just point me in whatever direction you want, and I’ll shoot some things,” Clint said.

 

Natasha shook her head, locking eyes with Steve and then rolling them heavenward as if to say, _Unbelievable_. She shifted her weight. “I’m gonna go check out some of my leads. While I’m gone, maybe you two can talk about real estate or what Steve looks for in a dream apartment.”

 

Natasha breezed out of the office before Steve could respond, and Clint snorted in amusement. “She shows that she cares through passive aggressive sarcasm,” he explained.

 

“I think I’m beginning to understand that,” Steve said faintly.

 

Clint smiled tiredly. “Don’t let it get to you. I won’t let you move into my building if you don’t want to.”

 

“I don’t,” Steve said firmly.

 

“Well, in that case, you’re banned, bro.”

 

Steve’s lips twitched upwards. “Thanks.”

 

Clint threw up a peace sign.

 

There was a painfully awkward stretch of silence. Clint shifted his weight.

 

“Wanna see pictures of my dog?” he finally asked into the thin silence.

 

“Yes,” Steve agreed immediately, relieved.

 

Clint hopped off the arm of the couch and scooted to sit next to Steve, whipping out an iPhone with a screen cracked like a spider web. Clint cut his finger three times as he pulled up his photo app.

 

Clint explained the stories behind each picture of Lucky as he scrolled, and Steve couldn’t help but be a little endeared. 20% endeared at most. At tops. Maybe 30%.

 

Natasha found them like this when she returned, and the harsh lines around her mouth softened just a tad as they looked up at her expectantly.

 

“He’s not there.”

 

“Motherfucker,” Steve groaned.

 

“I’ll keep looking.”

 

Steve had no doubt.

 

But was it selfish to not want this drawn-out?

 

He didn’t know.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Seeing Sam at lunch was a little bit surreal, now that Steve knew what his shirts felt like and what his eyes looked like up close.

 

“Hey,” Sam said, and if Steve knew him better, he’d venture to say that he sounded almost _shy_. Jesus Christ.

 

“Hi,” Steve replied.

 

“How’s your hand?”

 

Steve looked at it in surprise. “Oh. It’s good.”

 

Sam arched a perfect eyebrow. “Right.”

 

Steve flashed a smile. “Thanks, Sammy.”

 

Sam blinked at the nickname. Steve blinked at the nickname. He shuffled away before Sam could demand he take it back, but when he hazarded a glance over his shoulder, Sam was smiling a little bit.

 

Logan and Carol were talking in hushed tones, so Steve opted to sit by America and Laura. “What’s that all about?” he asked, jerking his head in their direction.

 

America shrugged. “Old people stuff.”

 

“They’re talking about bad people,” Laura said solemnly, her voice low so that Carol and Logan wouldn’t overhear.

 

“What kind of bad people?” Steve asked absently.

 

“The worst ones,” Laura said. Then she snuck a roll off America’s tray while America pretended not to notice.

 

America waved a dismissive hand. “Tragic backstory stuff. Don’t worry about it, _chico_.”

 

Steve warily dug into his soup, not necessarily trusting America, but when he tried to eavesdrop on Logan and Carol, she elbowed him in the ribs and gave him a good glare.

 

Right.

 

He kept forgetting that they didn’t trust him.

 

It’d serve him right to remember that.

 

Logan suddenly stood up, expression drawn tight. Carol looked at him warily, and he hissed, “Look, if you can’t even find _Donald Pierce_ , then what exactly is the fucking _point_?”

 

Laura tensed.

 

In a measured tone, Carol said, “The point is that we stick together.”

 

“Yeah, right,” Logan scoffed. “We’re not a fucking _family_.”

 

Carol hid her flinch well. “I’m sorry I’m so useless to you,” she snapped, scowling.

 

“Whatever,” Logan growled. “Come on, kid. We’re out.”

 

“He’s not here, is he?” Laura asked quietly.

 

Logan’s tense expression didn’t soften as it usually did when he addressed his daughter. His mouth tightened. “Nothing’s gonna happen to you.”

 

Laura’s little hands shook as she climbed off the bench and walked towards her father. Logan grabbed her hand, and they were gone.

 

Carol put her head on the table.

 

“You good, chief?” America asked.

 

“Mac,” Carol said dully. “I do not need this right now.”

 

“Maybe we can help.”

 

Steve tried not to react at the use of “we.”

 

Carol groaned. “I’m handling it. Mostly.”

 

“Donald?” America asked, and the word seemed to hold a million implications that Steve would never be able to grasp.

 

“I don’t know,” Carol said tiredly.

 

America gave a curt nod. “Well. I’m here to punch things if you need a hand.”

 

“Yeah, yeah.” Carol’s eyes flicked over to Steve with the sort of lazy deliberateness that made her so imposing. “Don’t go digging,” she said.

 

Steve blinked.

 

Carol stood, pointing at them. “I’m trusting you guys to be adults here.”

 

America rolled her eyes as soon as she’d disappeared, gathering her stuff. “Fucking drama queens. All of them.”

 

“Yeah…” Steve agreed mildly.

 

“What’s with you? You’ve been weird. Weirder than usual,” America said, raising her eyebrows.

 

Steve frowned. “Sorry.”

 

America eyed him suspiciously, and Steve tried not to squirm. “Does it have to do with whatever the fuck happened to your hand?”

 

Steve opened his mouth. Closed it.

 

Her voice dropped low. “Did you do it to yourself?”

 

“None of your business,” he snapped.

 

“Steve.” Her tone was—not surprised in the least. Disappointed.

 

He deflated. “Fine. Yes.”

 

America’s eyebrows shot up.

 

Because whether Steve wanted to admit it or not, he trusted her.

 

 _God_ , he was an idiot.

 

“Oh,” America said.

 

Steve shrugged violently.

 

“Why?” America demanded.

 

He paused, looking at her for a long time, trying to find a good way to say it. Finally, he settled on, “I can’t stop thinking about hypothermia.”

 

America’s lips parted slightly, and she was definitely surprised now.

 

Steve’s lips twisted bitterly. “Probably because it’s so unrealistic.” He lifted a shoulder. “If I can make my own fingers fall off, why shouldn’t I?”

 

His tone was laced with enough irony that America could take his words and laugh them off, but she just stood there. “I ran away from home,” she said after an eternity.

 

Steve stared at her. “ _What_?”

 

“I’m a runaway.” She spread her arms a little bit. “So everything that’s happened to me on the streets is really my fault. I had a good thing going too. My moms—they were great.” She sounded like she wanted to say something more, but she shook her head. “I am what I am because of myself.”

 

It was such a simplistic yet somehow powerful statement, and Steve leaned against the table for support. “Why are you telling me this?”

 

“An eye for an eye, right?” She stepped forward and pulled Steve so that he was flat on his feet. “Come on, _gringo_. We don’t got all day.”

 

“For what?”

 

“For standing up,” she said.

 

Steve stood up.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Clint was lying on the ground, staring at the ceiling. “Do you think grass cries when you step on it?”

 

Steve mulled it over. “I heard it screams or something when you cut it.”

 

“Fuck. I’m gonna cry about _grass_.”

 

“Boys,” Natasha said, climbing inside through the window. “Get ahold of yourselves.”

 

Clint sat up, tapping his hearing aid to signify that he hadn’t caught Natasha’s words. She repeated herself, and Clint flopped back down on the floor, ignoring her.

 

“Leads?” Steve asked.

 

“A few,” Natasha said cryptically. “Nothing worth sharing yet.”

 

“Should I just stay in the area?” Clint asked.

 

“Yeah. You can crash with me,” Natasha said. “Steve can too.”

 

Steve pretended he hadn’t heard her. “Are we done for the day, then?”

 

“It appears so.”

 

He stood. “Alright. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

“Don’t step on grass,” Clint said.

 

Steve offered a sloppy salute and made his way down to the streets.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sam wasn’t at lunch the next day.

 

Steve was disappointed, but he dismissed his absence, as Sam didn’t come every day.

 

Logan and Carol didn’t speak to each other.

 

 

* * *

 

 

After it had been three full days with no word on Sam, Steve got worried.

 

He arrived at Sam’s house as evening began to tease at night, and he noticed that none of the lights were on. Still, he knocked at the door.

 

Steve waited for a few minutes and was about to seriously consider Sam’s offer from a few days ago to come in through the window when the door cracked open.

 

Sam peeked out. “Oh.” His voice was rough. “Hi.”

 

“Hi,” Steve said, suddenly having no idea what he was doing here.

 

Sam sighed and opened the door. “You can come in.”

 

Steve hesitated before stepping across the threshold. Sam looked like he’d been wearing the same outfit for several days, and his facial hair was getting a bit unruly, but Steve had less than zero room to judge. “I was getting worried when you didn’t come to the soup kitchen for a few days, so I just figured I’d stop by and see if everything was fine, and I didn’t mean to impose or anything but—“ He was aware that he was rambling for maybe the first time in _months_ , but he couldn’t stop himself until Sam shifted his weight a little bit, and Steve remembered himself and snapped his mouth shut. “I can go.”

 

Sam waved a hand tiredly. “No, don’t bother. C’mon. Have a seat or whatever. It was real nice of you to want to check in.”

 

Steve tentatively followed Sam into his family room, where Sam sat down in a nest of blankets. Steve stood awkwardly in front of him. “Is everything… okay?”

 

Sam looked up at him, blinking very sluggishly. “My wingman died two years ago today.”

 

Steve went very still. “Oh.”

 

Sam shrugged. “I’m supposed to tell you that it’s not my fault.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Doesn’t feel like it,” Sam said, shaking his head. He pressed his lips together as if trying to prevent the words from existing. “Especially not today.”

 

Steve didn’t know what to _do_. He didn’t want to talk about himself and bring up _Bucky_ because this was about _Sam_ and Steve would die before he undermined that. “What do you need?” he blurted out and immediately wished he could take it back and just _know_.

 

Sam looked at him, startled. “A hug?”

 

Steve could do that. That was something that he could do. He sat down on the couch next to Sam and pulled him into his arms.

 

Sam pressed his face against Steve’s collarbone, and Steve tried not to think about the fact that he felt warmer here than he did in Peggy’s jacket nowadays. The threat of a future yawned before him, in his arms, and Steve didn’t know if he wanted it.

 

He put his chin on top of Sam’s head and closed his eyes.

 

“His name was Riley,” Sam said quietly, slightly muffled.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“He was an asshole. I love the guy, but he was an asshole.” He laughed a laugh that didn’t resemble a laugh very much. “ _God_.”

 

Steve ran a hand down Sam’s back. “You should sleep,” he said after a long moment.

 

“I have insomnia,” Sam said, his tone blank. “I haven’t slept for more than an hour in two weeks.”

 

“ _Jesus_.”

 

“Maybe. But I _function_ with my PTSD. Most of the time.”

 

“You don’t have to.”

 

Sam’s tone was quiet and firm when he whispered, “I want to.”

 

There was a pause. “We called it shellshock,” Steve said, mildly appalled that he’d referenced the previous century so casually.

 

“Yeah,” Sam said. He turned his head so that he was more just resting against Steve now, wound up in a cocoon of blankets. Steve _ached_.

 

“How d’you deal with it?”

 

“Used to drink,” Sam admitted quietly, “Now I just never leave the house when one fucking thing happens.”

 

Steve shook his head in wonder. “You’re so…”

 

“Pathetic?” Sam finished wryly.

 

“Strong,” Steve finished, fully fucking _awed_ , and Sam dropped into dead silence.

 

Sam didn’t fall asleep, but he didn’t move away either.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Laura had jumped onto Steve’s back and wound her arms around his neck so that Steve would carry her. He did so without protest, and she risked loosening an arm to poke him in the cheek.

 

“<Scratchy,>” she said in Spanish.

 

“Like your dad?” Steve asked, jumping just so her arms would go tight around his neck in fear of being dropped.

 

“No. His is less pointy.”

 

Logan _did_ have a full beard.

 

Speak of the devil: Logan scrambled into the alley in his fast, limping gait. “We have a fucking problem.”

 

Laura froze. Steve felt all of her muscles lock up.

 

America stood somewhere behind him. “Donald?”

 

Logan’s throat worked. “Yeah. With company.”

 

Steve didn’t know who Donald was, but by Laura’s continual terrible reactions, he figured he could assume the worst. He glanced at his backpack, a few feet away. His shield was in there.

 

“Where is he?” Laura asked quietly.

 

The look of fear and shame Logan gave her was enough to break Steve’s heart. “Close.”

 

“Where’s Carol?” America asked.

 

“She’s—“ Logan began, but he was interrupted by the sound of glass shattering, and Carol tumbled through a nearby window. She miraculously landed in a fucking dumpster, and Steve felt a breath whoosh out of him when her hand grabbed the edge.

 

“MOVE!” she shouted.

 

Laura growled with stunning similarity to her father and jumped off of Steve’s back before he realized what she was doing. “Laura—“

 

Logan glared fiercely at Steve. “Let her do her thing.”

 

“ _What_?”

 

He looked at Laura. “This is _her_ vengeance.”

 

Steve didn’t have time for questions as a bland-looking man swung down from the window that Carol had fallen out of, a team of men with guns fanning out behind him. “Mr. Howlett,” he called. “About time we caught up, don’t you think?”

 

Logan ground his teeth together but said nothing.

 

“You know what I’m here for,” the man said, and he wasn’t that far away, and nobody was moving yet, and Steve could see guns in the windows around them.

 

“Your greatest weapon,” Laura said.

 

Steve was beginning to suspect that this guy may be Donald.

 

Laura stepped forward. “You can’t have me.”

 

Donald smiled. “We’ll see about that.”

 

The first gunshot went off, and Steve dove for his backpack to grab his shield. By the time he stood up again, Laura had _fucking claws_ and was rushing from one man to the next, yelling indistinctly, leaving a distinct path of blood.

 

Logan, with his own pair of _fucking claws_ , followed not far behind, but he was slower with his limp and his sickness.

 

Steve tried to get account of everyone else, but he was interrupted when his gaze zeroed in on one man.

 

Scarred.

 

Sneering.

 

Heavily armed.

 

“ _Rumlow_.”

 

They saw each other at the same time, and Steve watched as recognition and satisfaction flared into Rumlow’s gaze.

 

“Rogers is mine,” Steve heard him say across eons.

 

Steve was running towards him before he’d even made a conscious decision, and among the bloodshed, they slammed into each other, and Steve smashed the shield into Rumlow’s neck out of reflex. His armor was protective, though, and he barely faltered.

 

“Surprised you lived,” Steve growled.

 

“Same goes for you.”

 

Rumlow was _good_ , and the fight was brutal and fast. Peggy had once said that watching Steve fight was like watching someone dance, but this didn’t feel that way. It felt like blood and rage and desperation, all tangled into the arcs of fists.

 

It happened so fast.

 

One moment, Steve was blocking a punch with his shield and aiming to take out Rumlow’s knee with a kick. The next, Rumlow had him shoved against the wall, hands around his throat.

 

“I’m gonna _enjoy_ this,” he said, leaning close. “You fucking miserable cocksucking propaganda piece of—“

 

There was a bang.

 

Warm sticky blood splattered onto his face, running into his eyes, his nose, his mouth, and fuck, was that brain matter on his face and—

  


 

Rumlow, missing half of his head, slumped forward and collapsed. All of his strings were cut. Snip.

 

Carol lowered her gun slightly and nodded. “ _Get going._ ”

 

Shaking, Steve did the only thing he could.

 

He picked up his shield and joined her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In the end, Donald and his men never stood a chance.

 

Their bodies fell one by one, and Steve could taste Rumlow’s blood on his tongue, and it was all he could think about, even as he broke a neck and crushed a skull and collapsed a chest.

 

Laura killed Donald with metal claws to the jugular.

 

Steve sat down next to America and tried to breathe.

 

“We have to move,” Carol said urgently.

 

Logan staggered and half-collapsed against the wall. “Jus’ a minute,” he slurred, spitting out a thick wad of blood. Maybe some teeth. Steve was dizzy.

 

“Police will be here in ‘just a minute,’” Carol said, but she didn’t move.

 

The night, on the razor’s edge between death and life, went very still. Still like death was still.

 

America slumped against Steve’s shoulders. “I’ve never killed anyone before,” she whispered like a confession.

 

Steve thoughtlessly put an arm around her. “Don’t make a habit of it.”

 

And Steve glanced at Logan and understood all of a sudden.

 

_Don’t be like me._

 

They were still for only a breath of a moment, but the moment spanned in all directions, and for once, Steve’s mind was quiet.

 

Horrifically, paradoxically quiet.


	7. 06: INVISIBLE HEROES

“I’m confused,” Steve said from the cramped room they had all managed to crowd into at Charles Xavier’s orphanage. Laura was asleep on Logan’s lap, and America was staring vacantly into the distance while Carol stood by her with her hand on her shoulder. Logan was looking at the door like Donald may pop through at any moment.

 

Logan hummed.

 

“We could say the same,” Carol said, eyes sliding towards where Steve’s shield was half exposed out of his backpack.

 

They’d guessed.

 

Steve closed his eyes. It was as much of an admission as he could give.

 

Carol gave a terse nod. “Captain.”

 

America’s gaze sharpened. “Steve.” Surprised.

 

He looked at her and lifted a defeated shoulder. It didn’t matter.

 

“I missed something,” Logan said, looking over at them.

 

“He’s Steve Rogers,” Carol said.

 

Logan wrinkled his nose. “ _Who_?”

 

“Captain Am—I keep forgetting you’re Canadian.”

 

“And amnesiac,” Logan added.

 

“Famous fighter guy from World War II,” Carol explained shortly, while Steve just wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

 

Logan glanced between Carol and Steve. “He’s not ninety.”

 

“Frozen,” Steve said tersely.

 

“Oh,” Logan grumbled, some of the light fading from his eyes. He looked back at the door.

 

Silence stretched out in all directions. Steve studied the flecks of dried blood on his hands.

 

“I suppose we owe you an explanation too,” Carol finally sighed.

 

Steve looked up at her slowly. His expression was bleak, he knew. It was an absurd kind of cruelty to come to rely on these people so thoroughly, when they hardly even _tolerated_ him. His mouth was dry, and he discovered an entirely new type of grief.

 

“Okay,” he said hollowly.

 

“America and I were on our own for a while,” Carol said. America’s gaze was vacant. She didn’t seem to be paying her surroundings any attention. “We could take care of ourselves, but people harassed us because we’re—“

 

“—women,” America finished. “Vulnerable.” She pointed to herself. “Black. Latina.”

 

“It was exhausting,” Carol said. “Logan and Laura showed up at a family shelter one day, but they thought Logan was predatory. Tried to separate them.”

 

“Morons,” Logan muttered.

 

“I told him they could stay with us for a while.” Logan scoffed, and Carol looked mildly sheepish. “I admit the ulterior motive was to have a scary-looking guy around to kind of bypass the harassment.”

 

“It worked, though,” America said.

 

Carol’s lips twisted bitterly. “Yeah.”

 

“Got a reputation, which is dangerous,” Logan said. “People knew us, so they knew when I started dying.”

 

Laura’s fingers twisted in Logan’s shirt, and Steve realized that she may be half-awake. Her knuckles were white.

 

“That’s mostly beside the point,” Carol said. “But yeah. That’s mostly why we let _you_ stay.”

 

Steve was so tired. “I scared people off again?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Donald Pierce made Laura into a weapon,” Carol said, and Logan’s jaw tensed, “before Logan found her.”

 

“He runs a weapons ring?” Steve asked dully. That was probably why Rumlow was there. Both in the weapons dealing business.

 

“Yes,” Logan said tersely.

 

“Laura is _valuable_ ,” Carol said. “So, Donald kept chasing them.”

 

“I thought we were safest on the streets,” Logan whispered roughly. “No identity. No paper trail.”

 

“Everyone ignores you,” America said.

 

“You’re a ghost,” Steve murmured.

 

There was a moment of silence—bitter but resigned. They all felt it.

 

“Needless to say, they found us,” Carol said.

 

Steve rubbed a hand across his jaw roughly. “Alright.”

 

He felt used—wrung out, like the towel Sarah used to wash dishes.

 

The words were lodged in his throat, but he choked them out anyway. “I can—leave.”

 

America looked at him sharply. “ _What?_ No.”

 

Steve stared at her, bewildered.

 

Logan offered him a confused eyebrow furrow. “The fuck are you talking about?”

 

Steve was so lost. “I—“

 

“You’re part of the fucking clique,” Logan said.

 

Steve stared. “ _I **am**?_ ”

 

“For the love of _god_ ,” Carol said, exasperated. “You’d be fucking helpless without us.”

 

Looking resolutely down at his knees, Steve shoved down the urge to cry. “Oh.”

 

America shuffled over to sit next to him. “We’re dysfunctional as all hell, but we’re a _family_.”

 

“Oh,” Steve said again, eyes burning.

 

“Jesus fucking _Christ_ , don’t _cry_ ,” Logan snapped.

 

“I’m not _crying_ ,” Steve snapped back, and he wasn’t. He was on the verge, but he wasn’t.

 

America kicked his ankle lightly. “Stay.”

 

It was an absurd kind of cruelty to lose family and lose and lose and lose. It was an absurd kind of curse and an absurd kind of blessing to find something close to it again. Steve looked around the room, his heart beating loud, and it _hurt_ to be alive—it hurt like all hell—but he wasn’t the only one.

 

Not anymore.

 

So he took a breath of air that was warm and heavy like life was warm and heavy and said, “Okay.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“What do we do now?” Laura asked about thirty seconds after she woke up for real. “I’m bored.”

 

“Are you?” Logan said dryly.

 

“You’re boring.”

 

“I’m not _boring_.”

 

“Yes you are.”

 

“Am not.”

 

“Are too.”

 

“Am _not_.”

 

“Are _too_.”

 

Steve and Carol exchanged a glance that he recognized as both fond and exasperated.

 

Something suddenly occurred to Steve, and he straightened. “I have to talk to Natasha.”

 

“Who?” America asked.

 

“Black Widow.”

 

Everyone turned to look at him, and Steve shrugged.

 

“She’s a friend from work,” he explained under his breath.

 

“ _She’s a friend from work_ ,” Laura mimicked in a high, unflattering voice. Logan snorted.

 

Steve stood to get ready to go just as there was a knock at the door.

 

Xavier opened it and managed to wheel inside the cramped room. “Hey, professor,” Logan said, tone almost somber.

 

“Logan,” Xavier said. He glanced at the rest of them with a mostly genuine smile. “Everyone.”

 

Steve watched as Logan adjusted Laura’s position in his arms so that she wasn’t able to look at his face as easily. He frowned. “What’s up?”

 

“I won’t beat around the bush. After the events of today, I think we’ll find it necessary that Laura live here for the time being.”

 

Logan didn’t look surprised or angry as the words registered, but his jaw went so tense that Steve worried his teeth may shatter. He gave a tiny, defeated nod, and Steve stared at him in shock.

 

Laura had twisted around (despite Logan’s hold) to look at him too. “That’s not fair,” she said.

 

Logan ran a shaking hand through her hair. “I’m no good for you, kid.”

 

Laura’s face screwed up, and she punched his chest. Logan grunted.

 

“You _love_ Charles,” he said, tone pleading.

 

“<Of course I love Charles, but you’re my _dad_! You’re my only family! We were supposed to _stay together_ , and you can’t ruin it. That’s not fair!>” she shouted in Spanish, rapid and angry.

 

Logan shook his head in lack of understanding. “You can’t end up like me,” he said.

 

Laura’s expression crumpled. She looked like she was warring between hitting Logan again or stomping away. In the end, she sat stiffly, still as a statue, five feet away from Logan while he buried his face in his hands.

 

Next to Steve, America’s fists were clenched.

 

Carol sat down on the ground in front of Laura. “You want to sleep in a bed at night, right?”

 

Laura didn’t answer.

 

“This is the only way your dad can safely give that to you right now. We’ll all still see each other during the day, like nothing changed.”

 

“<We were supposed to stay together,>” Laura whispered.

 

“<Plans change,>” America responded roughly. “<This doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.>”

 

Laura’s lip trembled, but she said nothing.

 

Charles had put a hand on Logan’s back, but Logan hadn’t reacted. “You’re always invited for dinner,” he said quietly, “and the teaching offer always stands.”

 

Logan’s breath was a rattle in his chest, and Steve wondered how much time he had before he was going to die.

 

The silence was brittle before Logan straightened and said, “Can you give us a minute?” looking at Laura as she looked at the far wall.

 

“’Course,” Charles said, and Steve, America, and Carol followed him out of the room.

 

Charles rubbed a hand over his face. “This is the right thing to do,” he declared, as if expecting them to disagree.

 

“She should have a roof over her head,” Carol agreed quietly, and the defensive hunch to Charles’ shoulders wilted slightly.

 

Steve looked between Carol and America. “Want to get some fresh air?”

 

Carol glanced at the blood on their clothes pointedly, but America said, “Yes.”

 

Carol shook her head. “I’m staying here.”

 

Steve put a hand on America’s shoulder. “We’ll be back in a couple’a hours.”

 

They stepped outside, and America pulled her coat tighter around her. “We’re going to see your friend from work?”

 

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Come on.”

 

They got to the office, and Steve knocked at the door.

 

Natasha cracked it open and peeked out at them. “Oh. Hey.” She opened the door all the way, stepping aside to let them in.

 

Clint was lying face-down on the couch. He didn’t move when they entered.

 

“Brock Rumlow is dead,” Steve said.

 

“Nice to see you too, Nat, love what you’ve done with the place,” Natasha said sarcastically.

 

Steve rolled his eyes. “Just thought that’d be pertinent.”

 

Natasha hummed. “I’ve got something pertinent too. Clint and I are gonna take down Shield.”

 

Steve’s eyebrows shot up. “All of it?”

 

Nodding, Natasha said, “Yep.”

 

“What’s Shield?” America asked.

 

Natasha’s sharp gaze focused on her. “A shady secret spy organization that saved my life.”

 

“Um. Rude,” Clint said, turning over. “I distinctly recall that _I_ did the life-saving.”

 

“Metaphorically, Clint,” Natasha said.

 

“I know what I said.”

 

“It’s all dirty?” Steve asked.

 

“Too much of it to salvage,” Natasha said.

 

“How’d you find out?”

 

“Sitwell. L-M-A-O,” Clint said.

 

Steve blinked, confused. “L-M-A-O?”

 

America rolled her eyes. “Laughing my ass off.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Natasha pointed at her. “I like you.”

 

“Thanks,” America said, straightening a little bit.

 

Natasha turned back to Steve. “You want in?”

 

“In what?” Steve asked absently, watching in morbid fascination as Clint rolled over and fell off the couch.

 

“Taking them down.”

 

Steve looked back at Natasha, surprised for some reason.

 

He considered the blank shield in his backpack back at the orphanage. He considered the fight from last night, and the scuffle with the Irish mob, and the druggie with the gun levelled at a kid, and every fight before. His life could be mapped by fights alone.

 

He considered America, standing next to him quietly, who helped people when nobody saw her. She was a hero. She was _his_ hero, and she didn’t go crusading at every opportunity.

 

Maybe Steve wasn’t a hero anymore, and maybe he’d never be a hero, but he remembered his fingers accidentally brushing against Sam’s card before he could grab his gun, and he remembered Carol reluctantly saying that Steve could stay, and he remembered Logan sacrificing himself for his daughter’s well-being, and he remembered Laura poking him to make sure he felt included, and _they_ were all fucking heroes. Perhaps they were more heroes than Steve had _ever_ been.

 

Invisible heroes who didn’t crusade but fought all the same.

 

Steve was slowly shaking his head before the thought had fully formed. “I think I need a change of pace. You two can handle it on your own anyway.”

 

Natasha’s shock briefly flashed onto her expression, but it was gone just as quickly. “Cool beans,” she said. She walked to the desk in the room and pulled an old flip-phone out of a drawer, handing it to Steve. “If you ever change your mind…”

 

Steve looked down. The phone only had one number programmed into it. “I’ll guard this with my life.”

 

Natasha grinned, clapping him on the shoulder. “I never doubted that.”

 

“Be safe,” Steve said quietly.

 

Her expression was almost rueful. “No promises.” She started to withdraw. “If you need anything else…”

 

Steve stopped. “Actually, there is one thing.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Logan grabbed Steve roughly by the back of the collar when they returned to the orphanage. “Walk,” he commanded gruffly, and Steve was taken captive.

 

They were silent for a while. Logan found a rock on the sidewalk and kicked it, then kept kicking it as he reached it. It was oddly hypnotic to watch.

 

“I’m gonna save up for an apartment,” he finally said.

 

Steve tried not to visibly react. “Okay.”

 

“She won’t be alone for long,” he added firmly.

 

Steve nodded. “Good.”

 

He remembered Clint and his apartment building and considered bringing it up, faltering at the threat of making Logan angry.

 

But he made Logan angry often enough.

 

“I know a guy who owns an apartment building in Brooklyn,” he said with a shrug. “He may give you a huge discount.”

 

Logan looked hesitant. He scratched the back of his head. “I’ll think about it.”

 

Steve turned to face him. “You’re gonna do right by her.”

 

Logan worked his jaw, Adam’s apple jumping. “How can you be so fucking sure?”

 

“I dunno.”

 

Rolling his eyes, Logan shoved him hard, and Steve stumbled. “Dumb fuck.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve considered that it may be creepy to sit on Sam’s porch and wait for him to come home, but he felt like they were past that at this point.

 

“Well, well, well,” Sam said as he walked up to his house. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

 

Steve smiled tiredly. “Hi.”

 

Sam frowned. “Everything alright?”

 

Steve thought about it for a moment before settling on, “Yeah.”

 

Sam scrutinized his expression. “I believe you,” he said, sounding a little bit surprised.

 

Steve rolled his eyes.

 

“Come in. Help me make dinner.”

 

They made burritos and sat down at the table. “How was your day?”

 

Sam shrugged. “Fine. Gotta go down to my mom’s house for Christmas in a few days, so I’m making arrangements for that.”

 

Steve perked up. “That should be nice.”

 

Sam frowned thoughtfully, as if mulling it over. “You know what, yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”

 

Steve raised an eyebrow in question.

 

Sam waved a hand, dismissive. “It’s just—I haven’t been a good son. I dunno. Keep skipping out on Christmas ‘cause of my own damn grief.” He gestured around. “My head.”

 

Steve kicked Sam’s shin lightly. “Hey. It’s just a day in the year. There are plenty of those.”

 

“Yeah,” Sam said slowly, obviously not entirely sold.

 

Steve swung his backpack around and unzipped it, pulling out his canteen from the war. “Here,” he said, handing it to Sam.

 

Sam took it, politely confused. “What’s this?”

 

“It was mine during the war,” Steve explained. He felt his cheeks heat, and he ducked his head, embarrassed. “Take it with you to your mom’s house. When you see it, remember that you’re good enough all by yourself because—because you help people—because you helped me stop only thinking of the past. Maybe.”

 

Sam stared at him. “Oh.” His voice was a little bit choked. He cleared his throat. “Thank you, Steve.”

 

Steve nodded. “Anytime.”

 

Sam cleared his throat again, standing to put his plate in the sink. “Uh. Sorry. I assume you came here for a reason other than listening to me talk about my shit.”

 

Steve frowned deeply. “I want to hear about your shit.”

 

Sam turned. “That’s nice of you to say.”

 

Steve didn’t want to talk about his original reason for coming here just yet. He wanted to make sure Sam understood this. “You’re important to me.”

 

“Steve—“

 

Steve stood, slowly approaching him. Sam looked up, blinking rapidly. Steve started to open his arms, and Sam stepped into them, and Steve enclosed them into a hug.

 

And, _god_ , it was nice. He breathed it in, warm and heavy like life was warm and heavy.

 

“You smell like blood and shit,” Sam said, muffled.

 

“Got in a fight,” Steve explained.

 

“Of course.” He pulled back a little bit. “Dumbass white boy.”

 

Steve grinned, ducking his head. “Sorry.”

 

Sam rolled his eyes. “Okay. I’m good. I’m good. Thank you.”

 

They stood together for a moment before Steve gathered the guts to ask his question. “Can you take me to this address?” He pulled out the scrap of paper that Natasha had given him.

 

Sam examined it. “I—sure?”

 

“Now?” Steve asked.

 

Sam blinked a few times, checking his watch. “I got time.”

 

They arrived at the building at dusk, and Sam turned to face him.

 

“Do you want me to come inside with you?” he asked, warily reading the name of the building.

 

Steve shrugged. “If you’d like to.”

 

Sam followed Steve quietly as he made his way to the front desk.

 

“Visiting hours end at nine,” the receptionist said.

 

“Okay.”

 

“Who are you here to see?”

 

Steve took a deep breath. “Margaret Carter.”

 

“Family?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“She’s in room 311.”

 

Steve straightened his jacket as he made his way down the halls. Sam walked beside him with a sad expression, but Steve couldn’t look at him for too long.

 

He reached 311 and stood in front of the door.

 

And stood.

 

And stood.

 

“You don’t have to go in,” Sam said quietly.

 

“I miss her,” Steve whispered. “What if she doesn’t remember me?”

 

“Alzheimer’s patients typically revert to a younger state of mind, so it’s possible she’ll remember you even more clearly.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Sam laid a hand on his back. “We can do this.”

 

Steve braced himself and softly opened the door.

 

Peggy laid in a hospital bed. Her hair was white. Her face was wrinkled. Her hands were spotted.

 

Steve’s knees did give out, but Sam caught him by the arms before he hit the floor.

 

“Steve?” Peggy asked, voice older and rougher, but it was the same. She sounded the same.

 

“Peg,” Steve gasped. He regained his balance long enough to collapse into the chair at her bedside.

 

She stared at him in shock. “You’re alive.”

 

“Some days,” Steve agreed with a desolate laugh. He reached out, shaking, and grabbed her hand. “They let me think you were dead.”

 

Peggy turned her hand over and laced their fingers together. “Same goes for me,” she said faintly. She stared at Steve in wonder. “ _How_?”

 

“I was _frozen_ ,” Steve said. “Can you _believe_ that?”

 

“I can believe quite a lot,” she whispered, voice quavering. “You’re here. You came home.”

 

“Yeah, Peg. Yeah, I did.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. “I’m here.”

 

“You’re wearing my jacket.”

 

Steve started crying then, but he laughed through it, smiling wide. “Why on _Earth_ did you have such a big jacket?”

 

Peggy looked offended. “I don’t know, Steve, maybe I _like_ them like that!”

 

“God, I love you. I miss you.”

 

Peggy touched his face. “Darling, the stories I could tell you.”

 

Steve kissed her hand again. “Same here.”

 

Peggy seemed to notice Sam at that moment. “And who’s this?”

 

Sam stepped forward. “Sam Wilson. Air Force vet.”

 

Peggy’s eyebrows shot up. “You know, I had a good friend who flew planes. His name was—” she frowned, “—Howard.”

 

“Was he any good?” Sam asked.

 

Peggy shrugged. “He was showy.”

 

Sam smiled. “Well. If you like that sort of thing.”

 

“I don’t.”

 

Steve snorted.

 

“You’ve caught me on a good day, darling,” Peggy said to Steve.

 

“Good,” Steve said. “Do—do you want to see me again?”

 

“If I have a say, I’d want to see you every day until the day I die.”

 

Jesus Christ. Steve sniffled and wiped at his eyes. “I can try.”

 

Peggy gripped his hand tight. “Good.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sam was quiet as they left.

 

“Did you like her?” Steve finally asked, anxious.

 

“Yeah, man. She’s awesome.”

 

Steve deflated a little bit. “Sorry for springing that on you.”

 

Sam gave him a serious look. “I’m glad you brought me there.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

Sam gripped his shoulder. “ _Yeah_.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was deathly quiet in the alley that night.

 

The absence of Laura was a physical ache, and Logan hunched in on himself and glared at the ground in silence, until Carol bullied him into lying down to glare at the ground in silence. America shivered and wrapped her arms around her long limbs, and Carol leaned against her wall and ground her teeth. Steve was sure that none of them got a second of sleep.

 

“We can’t stay here,” Carol said deep into the night. “We need a new place. It was stupid to come back here at all.”

 

“Oh no. How will we find an alley with the same prime real estate view?” Logan deadpanned in such a blank monotone that Steve snorted.

 

Carol offered them both death glares.

 

They spent the night searching for a new spot and settled on an alley closer to the orphanage. No one mentioned that as Logan settled against the corner that would be closest to Laura. It broke Steve’s heart a little bit.

 

America leaned against Steve’s side and let out a breath. “I’m never gonna sleep again.”

 

“You will,” Steve said sadly. “They were bad people, America.”

 

“They were people, Steve.”

 

“You’ve gotta learn to live with it,” Steve said. “Would you fault me for killing Nazis?”

 

“ _No_.”

 

“Same thing.”

 

America clearly wanted to argue, and Steve knew she was far from accepting what she’d done, but they had time. They had nothing if not time.

 

Steve shifted to make sure that she was more comfortable and thought about his fingers turning black. He resolved to himself that he would never let that happen to America.

 

“Give it time,” he said, and she sighed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was dark when Shield collapsed like a wet house of cards. Steve watched the news reports and wondered how it would have been different if he had been a part of it. Or if it would have been different at all.

 

Maybe it would’ve been smoother, but maybe it would’ve been messier.

 

He thought of dead skin and coldness and stillness and knew that yes, it would’ve been messier.

 

For now, he was content with his load:

  * a half-filled backpack;
  * an old leather jacket;
  * and a new family.



 

It’d do.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve stopped in his tracks.

 

It was the corner he’d sat against for days on hunger strike. He could see the smears of blood where he’d wrecked his knuckles again and again.

 

Maybe he was feeling nostalgic, but he sat down and lightly rapped his knuckles against the wall. He smiled.

 

It was a while before Sam rounded the corner on his jogging route. His gaze zeroed in on Steve, and even as his eyebrows shot up in question, he smiled. The expression grabbed Steve’s heart in a fist and made it hammer, and Steve let his hands drop into his lap, numb.

 

Sam came to a stop in front of him, breathing hard. “Hey.”

 

“Hi.”

 

“Mind if I join you?”

 

Steve gestured to the empty spot next to him. “Please.”

 

Sam settled down next to him, and Steve thought about smothering his smile, but he didn’t want to. He looked over at Sam to find him already looking at him. “What’s with you?” Sam asked, still grinning. He bumped their shoulders together.

 

“Dunno,” Steve said. “I think I’m starting to understand something.”

 

“And what’s that?”

 

“That you’re the real hero,” he said, looking straight ahead. “That being invisible and below everyone else’s feet doesn’t mean you’re not important. That—“

 

“That what?” Sam prompted gently after Steve said nothing for a moment.

 

He swallowed convulsively and chanced a glance back at Sam. Dangerous eyes. “That maybe we can all have futures. That we make our own futures.”

 

Sam reached over and grabbed his hand. “Are you happy with your future?”

 

“Are _you_?” Steve asked.

 

Sam gave his hand a little squeeze. “Most days, I think I am.”

 

Steve dropped into silence, for once grateful for the warmth. “Hey, Sammy?”

 

Sam’s lips twitched upwards. “Yeah?”

 

Steve breathed in the cold air. “I’m Captain America.”

 

There was a pause in which Sam looked down at their hands. He catalogued Steve’s fingers—all of them were there—and then he slowly looked to Steve’s face. Their eyes locked.

 

“Hey, Steve?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I think you’re more than that now.”


	8. 00: EPILOGUE

Sam felt the dents in the tin canteen Steve had given him.

 

“You ready for dinner, baby?” his mother asked, peeking into the room.

 

Sam smiled and put the canteen down. “Yeah. I’m comin’. Don’t set the table without me.”

 

She put an arm around his back even though he was taller than she was and whispered, “I’m so happy you’re here.”

 

Sam put his arm around her. “Me too, mama.”

 

“You look like you’re really in a much better place.”

 

Swallowing roughly, Sam managed a, “Thanks.”

 

She rubbed his back. “Now set that table.”

 

Sam smiled and went.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“How was Christmas?” Steve asked the next time Sam saw him, shuffling awkwardly in the soup line. He tugged at the sleeves of his jacket absently.

 

“Good,” Sam said, surprised by how genuine he felt in that. He loved his family, but it had never been necessarily _easy_ to be around them after he came home.

 

“Good,” Steve said with his tiny little dumb smile. “I’m glad.”

 

“Me too.”

 

They looked at each other for a moment, and Sam could have sworn that _there was something there_. Between them. Something that could unfurl and explode into something good.

 

Or it could be something terrible.

 

“Eat,” Sam said softly. “I’ll check in with you later.”

 

“Okay,” Steve said, flashing another smile before moving along.

 

That man was going to be the death of him.

 

Sam watched as he made his way over to his table where Carol, America, and Logan sat already. The little girl, Laura, was nowhere to be seen, but Sam knew better than to ask about that. Steve sat between Carol and America, and America elbowed him, engaging him in some sort of argument.

 

Sam looked away. There was something between him and Steve—that was for sure—but nothing else was certain, and he didn’t want to get ahead of himself.

 

After all, there were a million other stories to be told, and his and Steve’s was only one of them.

 

And maybe it’d end in flames, but Sam knew how to burn.

**Author's Note:**

> [I'm on tumblr.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/thecommodoresquid)


End file.
